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Royal Mail’s boss has vowed to deliver Christmas for Bristol – in contrast to last year’s chaotic scenes. The 2022 festive period was mired by strike action and saw a huge build up of letters and parcels at the Filton sorting office.
But yesterday the delivery service announced it was recruiting 460 members of temporary staff in Bristol to ensure the Christmas post arrived on time. Chief operating officer Grant McPherson said: “We are pulling out all the stops to deliver Christmas for our customers. It’s our busiest time of the year and we know how important it is for people that we deliver letters and parcels on time.
“By planning ahead and hiring more people, vans and trucks, we are well-prepared to handle the expected increased festive mail and parcels and deliver the high standards of service our customers expect from Royal Mail.” Temporary positions are available from
this month through to early January.
READ MORE: Another Bristol footbridge set to close for two years
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The period for the additional temporary work includes Black Friday and Cyber Monday but will be at its peak in December, a spokesman said, adding “competitive pay and flexible working across a range of shifts are offered”. Nationally the company has increased its fleet with an additional 6,800 vehicles and hired more than 1,000 road haulage contractors to transport the festive mail and parcels across the country.
A total 176,500 sqm of extra temporary space – equivalent to 16 football pitches – has been created across five seasonal parcel sort centres located in Atherstone, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Daventry, and Greenford in London. Early in December last year a Royal Mail worker of long service told the Post they had never witnessed a backlog of deliveries like it.
(Image: Tom Wren SWNS)
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The employee, who asked to remain anonymous due to fear of being dismissed, said they were concerned for members of the public who had been waiting days to receive their packages with “more coming in than going out”. According to the worker, the heaps of
packages had attracted rats and other animals including a fox.
They said there have been talks of a tarpaulin to cover everything but said “it would have to be the biggest tarpaulin in the world as everything has been ruined”. At the time Royal Mail said the build up of mail trolleys was “usual” for the time of the year.
