Royal Mail ‘postal deserts’ in London to be revealed as residents report missing post
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ew Royal Mail statistics are set to reveal how some neighbourhoods are receiving post as little as once a fortnight, including in London, according to reports.
Insiders have dubbed these postcodes “postal deserts”, according to the Telegraph newspaper, as mail bosses battle with staff shortages and strikes.
Royal Mail is expected to unveil figures later this week showing that annual delivery performance has sunk to near-record lows.
Among the London areas where residents have complained of poor postal services are East Dulwich and West Norwood.
One fed-up resident asked on social media: “Does anyone know if Royal Mail still operate in SE22? I have not received important post and I haven’t seen a postie in days. What’s going on?”
Residents in the area have previously complained of missing hospital appointment letters and Christmas and birthday cards.
A “lack of postal vans” has been blamed for a poor delivery service in Dorking, Surrey, the paper reported.
Nick Freeman, the motoring lawyer known as Mr Loophole, said that disruption to the postal deliveries could allow speeding motorists to escape fines because they must receive a ‘notice of intended prosecution’ within fourteen days of an alleged offence.
However, the data is also expected to show that Royal Mail’s overall performance has improved over the last three months because of fewer strike days.
In the final quarter of last year, first-class deliveries were on time just 54 per cent of the time instead of the 93 per cent target.
The Standard has contacted Royal Mail for comment.
A spokesperson told the Telegraph: “We are committed to improving our performance and accelerating Royal Mail’s transformation in order to restore service levels while meeting the changing requirements of our customers.
“We’re sorry to any customers who have not received the high standards they expect.
“To improve our quality of service it is vital that we modernise our network and ways of working so that we can more effectively manage the changing mix of mail in our posties’ mailbag.”
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