THE postal service is under fire from disgruntled customers and employees, who say that new rules imposed by bosses make it impossible for mail to be delivered on time.
The Gazette has been told postal workers have too little time to complete their own rounds, or “walks”, because they have to cover for absent colleagues first.
One Basingstoke postman, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “Because of conditions imposed upon us, some areas are not having a daily delivery.
“Instead, most postal workers, once it gets to their finishing time have to take the mail back to the office, where it is stored ready to be taken out the next day and the process starts all over again.
“Then, we have to deliver all next-day and tracked deliveries before our own walks can start. The upshot of this is that we have very little time to complete our own walks and post ends up going undelivered.
“We are doing our best under some very difficult conditions but we also now have a later start date of 6.30am, which also makes the job even harder.”
One dissatisfied customer is Rita Constable-Buckingham (pictured), from Dunley near Whitchurch, who said the service is “truly abominable” and deteriorating steadily.
The pensioner said: “It gives cause for concern about really important correspondence as well as disappointment about cards and so on.
“It recently took me three weeks to receive two birthday cards, which was infuriating.” (Teebs Note: Because wrong postage was paid
)
A spokesman from Royal Mail denied there were any problems. He said: “There has not been a change in policy recently and postal workers are given enough time to complete their own rounds.
“However, we are constantly looking at ways to improve efficiency as part of our drive to modernise the business and this means being more flexible.”
