A Sheffield woman who raised concerns about long postal delivery delays in the run up to Christmas has now been told to collect a parcel – from Barnsley.
Hilary Gerrans, a Broomhill resident, was shocked when after missing a postal delivery on Saturday she was left a card telling her that she needed to travel to a delivery office 15 miles away to pick up her mystery parcel.
She was left a note saying that the parcel was on her way to her local office, but rather than her local Broomhill delivery office, the listed office on the card was on Pitt Street, Barnsley.
This came just days after Hilary spoke to the Sheffield Telegraph about post in her area arriving almost three weeks late, which Royal Mail said was due to a restructuring at some Sheffield offices. Royal Mail has apologised for that disruption.
Hilary said: “I had no idea why it was taken to Barnsley. I tried to look online but there was no reference number on the card and at first it wasn’t accepted for redelivery.
"When I looked at the journey time it’s a 40 minute drive to Barnsley from here. I thought they can’t be serious about wanting me to collect it. I thought maybe they had used the wrong card.”
It is a 15 mile drive from Hilary’s local post office in Broomhill to the Barnsley office. Hilary does drive but for someone without a car it would have taken over an hour, several buses and a train ride just to get to the Barnsley office.
Hilary added: “From here on in if there is any option to use somebody else for deliveries I will. I have an Amazon delivery coming today and I know that that will arrive because they just do.
"I don’t think Royal Mail have sorted the problem out.
“Normally if I missed a delivery I would have popped to the Delivery Office in Broomhill and picked it up. There’s no way that I am driving to Barnsley to pick up a parcel that I don’t even know what it is!
“I rang an automated service and was able to arrange a redelivery.
"But I don’t feel confident that it will be delivered either.
“My biggest concern, as someone who works in the NHS, is people not getting hospital letters.”