Lack of Royal Mail post leaves 91-year-old lady in Narborough upset and frustrated

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https://www.lynnnews.co.uk/news/it-s-li ... e-9353887/

An elderly lady who lives on her own has been frustrated by a “Post Office scandal” as she has failed to receive important documents in the mail.

Sylvia Carter, 91, of Pentney Road in Narborough, has lived there for 50 years with no problems with the Breckland postal services. However, over the last two years, she has been affected by a lack of postal deliveries.

Being an elderly lady, living on her own, Sylvia relies on the phone and the mail to communicate with the outside world – especially when receiving hospital appointments and essential paperwork following her husband's death in October.

In recent months, she has either not received these or they are taking a huge delay in getting to her.

Under her postcode there are three properties. One is next door to Sylvia’s house and another is just up the road, but the one next door has been the only one to receive its mail.

Paul Carter, Sylvia’s son, investigated and found that it was not the postcode that was the problem.

He had sent a few dummy tracking letters to try and establish what was going on with the post, and discovered that the Swaffham sorting office was “deliberately tampering with the letters” by crossing out the address and converting ‘Pentney Road Narborough’ to ‘Narborough Road Pentney’.

Mr Carter said: “The postman has admitted this. I came over last Friday (February 9) when all these dummy letters were flying as I wanted to see, and on Friday the Lynn postman arrived with a registered letter that had been tampered with to make it a Lynn address – and it is illegal to do this.

“Her postcode is under Breckland Council, and should be delivered with the Narborough post on a Breckland postcode from Swaffham.

“The other side (of the street) is with a Pentney code issued by West Norfolk and delivered by Lynn, and that is the way it has been for the last 50 years until we had this problem.”

Sylvia started noticing her mail decreasing at Christmas time in 2022 when she was expecting parcels but they never turned up – and in January last year she had stacks of festive cards turn up with elastic bands around them.

She said: “I have lived here for 50 years and I have never had any problems, and my argument is ‘why and who has decided to change it?’

“Unfortunately my husband died in October and there are a lot of official papers that are not getting to me. My solicitor had to get essential paperwork to me and it took nearly three weeks to get to me.


“I need my mail. I have to have hospital appointments and they all have to come via post but I'm not getting them.

“It is alright if you are young and on the computer but if you are not you need the mail.

“We want it put right and I need it put right desperately.”

The Royal Mail has told the Lynn News that the problem Sylvia has been having has been resolved.


Sylvia's granddaughter, Emily Archer, filed the first complaint to the Royal Mail directly on March 22 last year.


Emily said: “We understand that if for whatever reason the Royal Mail decided that they were going to change their postcode lines, we should be informed that the sorting office was changing. We have had no confirmation.

“The frustrating thing is we have tried to address it with them. I have, since March 2023, communicated with them and every time you are stone-walled. I have been told multiple different things.”

Paul added: “This is a classic of the Post Office scandal in a different way.

“It is the same approach – they stonewall you, fob you off and you’re just getting nowhere. It's frustrating, no one wants to deal with it in a proper way.

“None of this would happen if Swaffham deliver as they should properly.”

However, the Royal Mail has said the issue has been dealt with.

A spokesperson at the Royal Mail, said: “We would like to apologise to Mrs Carter for not having provided the high standard of service we pride ourselves on delivering our customers.

“We recently made changes to our delivery procedures for the property and Mrs Carter is now receiving mail on a regular basis with no delays.”