Royal Mail warning as 14 areas hit by widespread chaos – full list | UK | News

Royal Mail has announced major delivery delays in 14 areas across the country.

The delays come as a result of staff shortages impacting the postal service and it is partly down to a high number of employees being on sick leave.

On the Royal Mail website, it said that the service aims to deliver six days a week however, unfortunately for some, post and delieveries are set to be extremely delayed this week.

Royal Mail said: “We aim to deliver to all addresses we have mail for, six days a week.

“In a small number of local offices, this may temporarily not be possible due to local issues such as high levels of sick absence, resourcing, or other local factors.”

List of postcodes affected by Royal Mail delays

• Alnwick DO (NE66 TO NE71)
• Ashington DO (NE22, NE62, NE63 and NE64)
• Billesdon SPDO (LE7)
• Boston DO (PE20, PE21 AND PE22)
• Dudley DO (DY1 – DY3)
• Heywood DO (OL10)
• Hull Malmo Road DO (HU6 – HU8, HU11, HU16 and HU20)
• Hungerford DO (RG17)
• Huntingdon DO (PE26 – PE29)
• Lanark DO (ML11 and ML18)
• Leicester East DO (LE1, LE2, LE5, LE7 and LE21)
• Manchester South East DO (M11, M12, M13 and M18)
• Sleaford DO (NG34)
• Southgate DO (N14)

In order to reduce the delays, the company shared that the offices experiencing staff shortages will recieve extra support. It will also commit to “rotate delieveres to minimise the delay to individual customers”.

It continued: “We’re sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.

“We will regulary update customers on the offices most impacted.”

Sundays are the only days of the week that Royal Mail do not do delieveries. The service also offer first-class mail which is delievered the day after dispatch, whilst second-class post usually arrive two days after.

However, in a submission to Ofcom in April, Royal Mail proposed leaving Saturday deliveries for second-class post and cutting the service to every other weekday.

Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s group director for networks and communications said: “If we decide to propose changes to the universal service next year, we want to make sure we achieve the best outcome for consumers.”