People still waiting for Christmas cards amid major postal delays in Rugby

Residents in Rugby say they are still waiting to receive Christmas cards because of huge postal delays affecting the area.

A number of people living in the town said they were still receiving cards sent over the festive period, some sent from within Rugby itself.

Royal Mail has apologised for the delays and blamed the hold-ups, which are affecting many areas across the UK, on a mixture of factors including “high levels of sickness absence”.

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Speaking about the issue on the Spotted: Rugby Town Facebook group, one resident said they received a letter about an MRI scan two days after it was actually performed.

“Good job the hospital sent me a text or I would have missed the MRI I’d been waiting months for,” they said.

Around 15,000 – or one in seven – of the postal service’s workers were said to have been sick or isolating as the omicron variant of Covid-19 spread in the first week of January.

The figure reportedly still stood at 13,000 in the second week of January, double the normal level for this time of year.

Royal Mail is juggling millions of Covid-19 test kit deliveries and huge parcel volumes, which have surged during the pandemic and now include a wave of Christmas gift returns.

In addition, official figures showed more than 1.5 million coronavirus test samples were posted for analysis by households and “satellite” centres such as care homes in the week to January 5.

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Royal Mail said it was working hard to clear the backlog of mail against a series of unprecedented challenges.

A spokesman said: “In the local area (of Rugby), we are experiencing some delays to service due to high levels of sickness absence, Covid related self-isolation and resourcing issues.

“We apologise to any customers who may have experienced delays to their mail.

“We have been working hard to get our levels of service back to normal as soon as possible.

“The vast majority of mail is delivered safely and on time. We aim to deliver to all addresses we have mail for, six days a week.

Anyone concerned about the delivery of their mail should contact the Royal Mail customer service team on 03457 740 740 or visit www.royalmail.com