Royal Mail warns over service delays in the Black Country and Staffordshire amid storms and staff sickness
Royal Mail has warned over further potential service delays across more than 100 UK postcodes, including in Brierley Hill and Staffordshire, as storms and workers being off sick cause disruption.
The postal firm has already been facing complaints of long-delayed mail and parcels being prioritised over letters.
Royal Mail listed 38 delivery offices in the UK on Monday (February 16), covering around 100 postcodes, that may be most affected by a slower service. They include the Brierley Hill office covering the DY5 area and the Lichfield office covering WS7, WS13 and WS14 postcodes.
A spokesman for the company said that “adverse weather, including Storms Goretti, Ingrid and Chandra in January, alongside higher-than-usual sick absence, has caused some short-term disruption to certain routes”.
“We want to reassure customers that the vast majority of mail is delivered as planned and understand how frustrating it is when post does not arrive as expected,” the firm said.
It added that, where delays do affect a route, it will move to bring in extra support to “restore deliveries as quickly as possible”.
In January mail had been delayed in a total of 68 postcode areas across the West Midlands, with Royal Mail blaming a backlog caused by snow.
There were reports of problems in Shifnal, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Telford, and Newport among other areas, with significant numbers of residents saying they had not received any mail since Christmas.
Mark Pritchard, MP for The Wrekin in Shropshire, told Parliament last week one of his constituents had waited 12 days for a first-class letter.
The issue had been ongoing since before Christmas, with residents reporting not receiving post for days on end in the Newport area in early December.
Meanwhile, a report by the BBC found that some letters were being held in delivery offices for weeks, leaving people to miss urgent mail such as appointment notices and bank statements.
Citing anonymous postal workers, the report said that parcels were being prioritised over letters in some depots, even if they are first class, while staff shortages were more broadly impacting the service.
It is understood that Royal Mail will opt to clear parcels first if they build up quickly and block walkways in delivery offices.
The company has said it is delivering more parcels as online shopping continues to grow, while the number of addressed letters going through its network is falling.
Royal Mail serves nearly two million postcodes and is required to deliver mail six days a week, and aims to deliver both letters and parcels on time.
Regulator Ofcom last year gave the go-ahead for Royal Mail to scrap second class letter deliveries on Saturdays and change the service to every other weekday.
It launched the changes across 35 delivery offices as a pilot, but has yet to expand this nationwide across all 1,200 sites due to failing to reach agreement with the staff union.
It is in the middle of a month-long dispute resolution process with the Communication Workers Union with the aim of reaching an agreement over how the workforce will be impacted by the overhaul.
