Cinderhill City Link to reopen after four days' closure

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A POSTAL depot which has been closed for four days – leaving people unable to pick up Christmas gifts – is due to reopen today.

Courier company City Link closed its depot at Cinderhill due to the high number of people trying to collect parcels.

The parcels are kept at the depot if City Link cannot make a delivery – for example if a person is not at home.

Steve Potter, 53, of Brinsley, is one of those who has been waiting to collect a parcel.


Presents for his wife and son were taken to the depot after they could not be delivered to his house on Wednesday and Thursday last week.

When he went to the depot he was told it was closed because they were too busy.

Mr Potter said: "If they let people in, it may clear the backlog a bit quicker.

"I think they're being very uncaring.

"If it wasn't for us buying things at Christmas they would have a lot less business."

The depot is based on Millennium Way West in Cinderhill.

Mark Tapper, operations director for City Link, said: "The recent extreme weather conditions, together with the exceptionally high seasonal uplift in volumes, has led to delivery delays in parts of the country.

"Due to the continuing volumes and the backlog, this has resulted in excessive waiting times for people collecting from the Nottingham depot and we have been forced to take the decision to close our parcel collection point."

A spokesman for the company said it was closed from Monday to yesterday, but was expected to be open today.

Meanwhile the Royal Mail has also had to deal with mounting post – with one postman at the Nottingham South Delivery Office, on Clarke Road, near Meadow Lane, claiming there were between 4,000 and 8,000 undelivered letters and around 1,000 parcels at the delivery office by yesterday morning.

The postman, who asked not to be named, said it would usually be clear at this time of the year.

"I've never known it like this in 20 years," he said.

Royal Mail says deliveries are being affected by the icy weather, but the postman claimed that fewer temporary staff than usual had been employed over the busy Christmas period.

"It's been badly organised," he said.

A Royal Mail spokeswoman said: "Our postmen and women are pulling out all the stops to get the mail delivered as quickly as possible, although in some instances these efforts are being hampered by the snow and icy conditions."

The spokeswoman added she could not comment on how much mail had accumulated at delivery offices, how this compared to previous years and how many temporary staff had been employed.