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Royal Mail denies festive post delays
Reporter: KEN BENNETT
Date online: 15 December 2009
Oldhamers expecting Christmas parcels could face delays because of a pile up of mail at delivery offices.
The warning came after it was claimed some post remained untouched for a week at Hamilton Street, the town’s main postal centre.
An unsigned note accompanying photographs of parcels and packages stacked in “Yorkies” — metal cages — at the centre said: “People in Oldham should be aware of the backlog of parcels already backed up in the delivery office.
“If they are waiting for their Christmas presents they are probably sat in these cages, some of which are now a week old.”
This week is the peak time for mail and last posting dates are Friday for second class mail and Monday, December 21, for first class.
But a Royal Mail spokesman, who was sent copies of the pictures, denied there were long delays.
He said: “Due to an unprecedented increase in the number of parcels being posted this Christmas there is a delay of up to two days on the delivery of a number of items from Oldham delivery office.
“However, we have planned in extra resources to cope with the additional mail at this time of year, and all items taken out by our postmen and women each day are being delivered.”
A postal observer, who claimed full-time postal teams are “run ragged”, said: “Drivers simply don’t have enough time to do the parcels and the postmen don’t have enough time to sort them.
“Santa Claus runs a better delivery service.
“For example, if a postman can’t deliver a parcel because someone is not in when he calls, the parcel has to be put back in the system. This means it could take another couple of weeks to arrive at the Royal Mail office ready for the customer to pick it up, because it has to go through Manchester before it arrives back in Oldham to join the queue.”
Another source close to the Royal Mail said: “It is chaos. Mail is stacking up in these wire cages. There were more than 60 of them and we are only getting a trickle of parcels through.
“There have been moves to get staff to work on Sundays to get rid of the backlog. Parcels in Oldham have gone up by more than 50 per cent this year with more people buying on line. One customer came into one office asking for a parcel that should have arrived two weeks ago.”
The Royal Mail spokesman added: “We operate a temporary facility at Heywood each year in the run up to Christmas to help process the greater volume of parcels which enter our system.”
Comments
after the strike royal mail assured us that they would throw everything at getting rid of the backlog of mail.
still receiving post now from november!
i will think twice about using them in the future! there are plently of other delivery companys out there now.
If the reest of the staff at the sorting office are anything like my postmen then god help us. The bloke is a complete imbecile.
The spokesman may be correct, but over the past two days I have had parcels left on my doorstep without having the doorbell rung, or doorknocker used!Anyone could have picked these up and hey!merry Christmas!Oh, and one very important point Royal Mail, two of the parcels, on separate days, had stickers on "REQUIRES SIGNATURE"!!!Explain that!
I think anyone who watched Panarama on BBC1 last night knows whaat RM managment are like so don't hold your breath for post
Plus Ca Change?
Time to privatise this antiquated & hopeless 'service' or take away the monopoly and let it die a natural death as users choose to take their business elsewhere.
disgraceful. oldham's post has always been a mess and this confirms it. the one time of the year they need to get it right and they make the usual balls of it!! we had a "new" postie up here the other day who knocked on the door and asked if we were number 1!! (we are number 3) useless, REALLY useless!! use DHL, you post will actually get there!!
we dont send cards anymore as the last two years cards we have sent havnt arrived and post has been sent with money in and hasnt arrived no faith in the postal service
parcells sent out on the 3rd and 13th of december and later on that month still havent come thru i am awaiting 20 odd parcells and what do i get when i go down the sorting office apart from a long wait.a Sorry theres nothing here and then given a telphone number that never gets answered.
i know a couple of people who work in that office that have said that there is loads of trollys and baskets full of parcells waiting to be delivered and what are they doing about it,NOTHING.they cant even blame it on the snow becouse normal post is comeing thru just fine so what are they playing at realy
Have Your Say
Parcel posted first class recorded 30th Nov.from Rossendale arrived 9th Dec.in Oldham.I visited sorting office day before.stood for 30 mins in cold,queue outside to front gate only to be told it was quote "somewhere in the system " !!! SYSTEM FAILURE OR WHAT.
By Linda @ 15/12/2009 14:10:44