Royal Mail will bring its new delivery system to Wrexham in mid-August, earlier than originally planned, the city’s MP has said.
Andrew Ranger MP said the change follows many months of complaints from residents about post arriving late or in a bundles after days without any deliveries, including hospital appointment letters that arrived after the appointment date.
Speaking to Wrexham.com, Mr Ranger said: “We’ve had similar feedback over many many months now.”
“We were getting lots of casework where people were getting no mail for days, then a bundle of everything all together, some were appointments for hospital which they’d missed.”
He described one case where a patient had attended hospital, however the appointment cancellation had been sent via the postal system and thus not received – wasting everyones time involved.
Other examples included where bills had not turned up, and therefore had not been paid, which had resulted in people getting into financial difficulty.
Mr Ranger said he and other MPs had been raising the issue with UK Government Ministers, and that Royal Mail bosses were brought before a Select Committee in Parliament.
“To be fair to Royal Mail, they have engaged,” he said. “They’re bringing in a new system, which – if it works – I think will make it better.”
“They’re not hiding under a rock and pretending nothing’s wrong,” Mr Ranger said of Royal Mail. “But it has been distressing for people, so it’s important Royal Mail get it right.”
Mr Ranger explained post in Wrexham arrives via Chester, and is sorted in the local racks. However the volume and local systems meant ” it’s almost like they’re trying to constantly catch up with themselves”.
“This new system is that everything that comes from Chester on that morning has to go out that day, and the automation at Chester will basically make sure that the mail that’s going to Wrexham is meeting the obligation.”
On timing, he said: “The Wrexham implementation of that was supposed to be later in the autumn, but they brought it forward to mid-August, so that the new system will start then.”
The universal service obligation, set under the Postal Services Act 2011 and enforced by Ofcom, requires Royal Mail to deliver at one price to every UK address, with first class letters six days a week. Ofcom reformed the obligation in July 2025, allowing second class letters to be delivered on alternate weekdays, and from 1 April 2026 the targets require 90% of first class mail to arrive the next working day and 95% of second class within three working days, with a backstop that 99% of mail arrives no more than two days late.
The targets carry penalties. Ofcom fined Royal Mail £21m in October 2025 for missing the previous year’s targets, its third fine in three years, and opened an investigation into the company’s 2025/26 performance in June.
Mr Ranger said postal workers’ revised working hours had been agreed, and that he had spoken to Communication Workers Union representatives. He said: “They painted a picture that yes, we’ve got this new system, we’ve got to get used to it, but actually, we feel it’s the right thing going forward.”
He said the new arrangement would need time to settle: “Give it a few weeks to bed in, but in the autumn we should be seeing a regular better service.”
On the issue of poor postal delivery affecting the health service, in terms of both patients and providers, he said he had spoken with the local Health Board.
Mr Ranger pointed to further digitisation, such as more use of text messages, as a possible aide. He said a barcode priority system exists for items such as hospital appointment letters, and that he was “pushing the health board to make sure they were making use of that”.
His office held a street stall in the city centre recently to hear from residents without email, which he said produced “really good engagement”.
Royal Mail has been delivering a leaflet to households explaining the changes, which Mr Ranger said he understood was still going out.
Mr Ranger appeared in full support of local staff and postal workers. On the local posties he said, “In some places they are central to their communities”, and that in rural villages “that might be the only person some people see”.
Asked whether the apparent commercial decision to prioritise parcels risked the letters service longer term, Mr Ranger said the universal service obligation “is verging on sacred” and that “there’s no sense of anyone wanting to backtrack from it”.
But he said: “I think maybe in 10 or 20 years, my own personal opinion is that, if mail is down to nothing other than adverts, we probably will at that stage have to look at things again, just to be realistic, because they are a private entity, aren’t they? They need to make money to exist, because the last thing we want is them going out of existence, and then there would be no mail.”
UK wide the new delivery model is being rolled out in phases across around 1,200 delivery offices, with Royal Mail expecting to complete it by Christmas.
What Royal Mail say:
What’s changing – and what’s staying the same
Ofcom’s reforms to the Universal Service include changes to how your letters will be delivered.
What’s changing:
*2nd Class and other non-1st Class letters will be delivered every other weekday (Monday to Friday). We aim to deliver 2nd Class mail within three weekdays.
*Standard bulk business letters (used for items like bills and statements) will move to a three day delivery aim, aligned with 2nd Class.
*New reliability targets for 1st and 2nd Class services will be introduced. You can read more about these in our FAQs below.
Universal Service reform is critical to enabling a step change in the quality of service we provide to you. We have now reached agreement with the Communication Workers Union (CWU) on the deployment of reform, subject to a CWU members’ ballot, which will take place shortly.
The rollout of the new delivery model has begun and will be undertaken on a phased basis over five to six months across c.1,200 delivery offices. This is a significant reform that will be introduced gradually over time, with implementation expected to be complete by December 2026.
We will continue to keep you informed as our plans develop and thank you for your continued patience while we work to secure a more reliable and sustainable service for the future.
2nd Class Deliveries
Here’s a table demonstrating when you might expect to receive 2nd Class letters under the changes, across a two-week period, if you have 2nd Class items that are due to be delivered to you:
What’s staying the same
One-price-goes-anywhere service across the UK
1st Class letters delivered six days a week (Monday to Saturday)
Choice of 1st and 2nd Class for letters and parcels
Parcels delivered up to seven days a week
