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The MP for Honiton and Sidmouth, visited the Sidmouth Delivery Office on Friday to learn more about the efforts made to deliver letters and parcels during the peak Christmas period.
The festive season is Royal Mail’s busiest time of year, with the volume of letters and parcels processed doubling as people send Christmas cards and shop for gifts online.
Sidmouth Delivery Office is ready to meet this demand with the addition of a recruit and two extra vans for the Christmas period.
The MP spoke with Matthew Goss, customer operations manager, about Royal Mail’s strategy to ensure sending and receiving parcels remains convenient during this busy time.
This includes initiatives like Parcel Collect, where posties pick up parcels from customers at their doorstep, and offer more ways to drop off parcels at convenient times and locations.
Royal Mail has already rolled out more than 5,000 parcel points this year, including at Collect+ stores and its growing number of parcel lockers.
Across the UK, Royal Mail has recruited 16,000 temporary workers to assist its 85,000 posties in sorting the additional mail and increasing number of parcels expected over the festive period.
Almost 4,000 new vans, trucks, and trailers are being added to the fleet in time for Christmas.
In Sidmouth, the delivery office has hired a temporary member of staff and two extra vans to meet the increased demand for deliveries in the area.
This is in addition to the seven permanent members of staff who have joined in the past year.
Mr Goss said: “It was great to have Richard visit our delivery office and to show him how we are gearing up for our peak period.
“We are pulling out all the stops to deliver Christmas for our customers.”
Mr Foord said: “Royal Mail is an iconic part of Christmas in the UK – the posties deliver sacks of joy at Christmas, just as they do all year round.
“I’ve got a newfound appreciation for what they do after seeing how the operation works on the inside.”
