Royal Mail staff shortages mean people in Leatherhead have been going days without post

[TrueBlueTerrier]

https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey ... n-15084442" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Royal Mail has blamed staff shortages for serious issues with postal deliveries in Leatherhead with some people going days with no letters at all and others reportedly getting some correspondence months after it was sent.

Due to "unforeseen sick absence" and "vacancies in the office", the postal service said there has been some disruption to its schedules in the town and surrounding villages.


Residents have received vital bills and other mail late, and a woman who runs a charity from home says sick children have missed out on letters designed to cheer them up.

Surrey county councillor for Leatherhead and Fetcham, Tim Hall, who lives in Epsom Road, Leatherhead, said: "It's quite difficult. A lot of people grin and bear it because you don't know if it's only you or if a lot of people didn't get any post.

"There are definitely patches where we don't have any. It was only after a few days that everybody cottoned on that it was the whole development [where I live] and not just themselves."

A Royal Mail spokesman acknowledged customers' problems and said it is looking to get back to a normal service soon.

"Whilst we have been doing all we can to maintain delivery services to all customers, we apologise to those customers who have been affected," he said.

"We have some new staff joining us in the near future and in the meantime we have some support from neighbouring offices. We are confident that we will be able to restore a high quality of service to all our customers very soon."

Great Bookham resident Vikki George runs a local charity, Post Pals, which encourages people to send letters, cards and gifts to seriously ill children. She pays for PO Box correspondence to be sent to her home in Strathcona Avenue.

"I run a local charity and we are having a nightmare with our post," she said. "We pay for a PO Box and extra for it to be delivered to us, this is meant to add one extra day to delivery.

"Often we don't get any post for a long time and then two or three months' worth turns up. Our last delivery contained applications for two terminally ill children who missed two to three months of support, cheques with much needed donations and a request for a job reference for a volunteer which arrived a month after the requested return date."

Royal Mail, which has a delivery office in Station Road, Leatherhead, said if mail is not delivered, every effort is made to deliver to those addresses the next day so customers do not experience consecutive instances.


But Emma Gibbs, who lives in Kingston Road, Leatherhead, with her husband, said: "We had no post for a week, for the week starting August 13. And after that we have continued having less than normal, which is impossible [to deal with] as my husband is self-employed and we have post every day.


"Also, for the last few weeks we have been receiving our neighbours' post, and ours has been delivered to other houses."

The Royal Mail spokesman added: "Any customers who have concerns about particular items of mail should contact Royal Mail Customer Services via our website: http://www.royalmail.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, on Twitter @RoyalMailHelp or by phone on 03457 740 740 so we can investigate."

[crimson king]

Makes you proud to wear the uniform, doesn't it?

[Speedmeister]

This is about the third report of "unforeseen sick absence" causing delays in deliveries in the last few weeks. Makes you wonder what is causing all this sickness absence.

[hans solo]

its not sick its lapsing not getting done as the clowns do away with too many duties in their lapsing schedule gotta get the bonus figures up f**k quality of service

[fb1969]

We have one vacancy in our office but on Monday at least four rounds weren't even touched. Nothing thrown off and nothing delivered on any of them. On top of that about seven York failed to even get to IPS, and today we start with the nine Yorks that failed the same way on Tuesday.

[Navalron]

It's about time the public was good the state of service now in RM instead of politicians and business leaders telling us all that things are so much better since privatisation. It might help to get it back to being nationalised again and being a service for the good of society and not a cashcow for rich shareholders on the back of ever worsening conditions and workload for posties. Let's make it happen.

[Wolf91]

RIGHTTTT. Most probably lapsing that nobody will take on the regular. These people are obviously exaggerating to make their story more dramatic, but still; understaffed DO so it happens frequently. RM too adamant on cost cutting to employ someone for it.

[Newbie001]

Bet some of the blame lies with whistle/ UK mail. I get lots of people asking about hospital letters. We can only deliver it when we receive it, delays must be on there side as well. Either that or hospital s are sending out late.

[Newbie001]

This is about the third report of "unforeseen sick absence" causing delays in deliveries in the last few weeks. Makes you wonder what is causing all this sickness absence.

We've always got 5/6 staff down sickwise all year round, almost always full-timers. Half are genuine longterm, work injuries. But too many others milk it in my opinion. Always the same ones as well. Funny how their injuries always heal after 7/10 days.

[Navalron]

This is about the third report of "unforeseen sick absence" causing delays in deliveries in the last few weeks. Makes you wonder what is causing all this sickness absence.

We've always got 5/6 staff down sickwise all year round, almost always full-timers. Half are genuine longterm, work injuries. But too many others milk it in my opinion. Always the same ones as well. Funny how their injuries always heal after 7/10 days.

You do know that RM expect you to take 2week's per year off on the sick. It's all caculated in the pay rises. And how do you know if some people are milking it. A cold can take 3 or 4 days and your better. Personally I took sick leave even when not sick as it was built into the wage settlements but was savy enough not to be pulled in/staged for it, like going back the day before a stage would kick in. That's not milking it, that's just common sense because they don't think any better of you for struggling into work year in year out.

[NWpostie]

I'm due a "mental health" week off