Posties braced for busiest day ever

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/Post ... 4790868.jp

POSTIES and delivery office staff will be putting their feet up tonight for a well-earned rest, after the busiest day in their calendar.

Last year, festive postings reached two billion items, with 750 million cards being sent through the post.

This week, 9.6 million items of mail will be delivered in the NE postcode area, compared to 7.6 million in an average week. The SR postcode will see a rise from 1.3 million to 1.6 million.

At the delivery office in Keppel Street, South Shields, staff are preparing to work extra hours, to get everyone's cards and presents to them on time.

"They do go that extra mile to clear everything every day," says delivery office manager Kevin Carrahar.

"We're getting between 90,000 and 100,000 items a day at the moment, when it's usually 60,000 to 70,000. We will be at our busiest today and tomorrow."

There are 102 staff at the delivery office, of which about 70 do outdoor duties, delivering mail to homes and businesses in South Shields.

Sister offices in Jarrow and Sunderland deal with the post in Jarrow, Hebburn and the Boldons, and Cleadon and Whitburn respectively.

Posties do more than pick up a bag and head off on their rounds – they start at 6am to sort their mail and usually leave at about 10am, with rounds lasting an average of three-and-a-half hours.

Letters posted in South Shields are collected from post boxes and taken to the automated processing centre (APC) in Team Valley, Gateshead, which sorts all the mail for the NE and SR areas. Trays of letters and packages are then brought to the South Shields delivery office, which has two primary postcode sections – NE33 and NE34.

They are then sorted into routes, broken down in street order, ready to be put into bags or trolleys that can carry three bags for town centre posties.

Indoor duties include staffing the collection office, which is extending its opening hours to make sure items that couldn't be delivered can be collected.

It will be open from 6.30am to 7.30pm this week and next Monday and Tuesday, from 6.30am to 5.30pm on Saturday, from 2pm to 6pm on Sunday and from 6.30am to 5pm on Christmas Eve.

The office also has a 'vague box' for items that haven't been properly addressed, and staff do all they can to work out where they are meant to go.

Kevin said: "Most people see our outside work, they don't really see what goes on in here."

Royal Mail expects to deliver more than 140 million items ordered online, and Kevin said more packages are arriving from the likes of Amazon and Play.com.

Postwoman Mariane Halligan, 54, from Mortimer Road, South Shields, has worked for Royal Mail for more than 17 years and said the camaraderie in the office gets them through the hectic festive period.

"At Christmas time it is busier, but we all work hard," she said. "Some rounds are heavier than others – it depends what kind of area you cover.

"This is one of the best offices. Everyone who comes here says it is. The camaraderie is good."

But there's no rest for the wicked in the new year, Kevin said, with January being another peak time for the office.

He added: "It will probably be February before things get back to normal."