An Eccles resident claims she has not received mail for ten days, after Eccles Councillors said that staff at Royal Mail are being instructed to “prioritise parcels”.
Gillian Massey, is becoming increasingly frustrated. Having missed important letters regarding fines and gas, because her mail comes in large bulks due to a major backlog of letters.
Eccles Labour stated on Facebook that, Royal Mail expect that each day, there will be letters left undelivered and sometimes only half of the letters will be delivered.
Are you experiencing disrupted @RoyalMail deliveries in Eccles? 🧵
1/Your Labour Councillors understand that staff at Eccles Royal Mail sorting office are being told to prioritise tracked parcels over mail & that there are multiple walks with mail left in every single day again.
— Eccles Labour (@LabourEccles) December 6, 2022
Gillian spoke about the situation and how it has affected her. She said: “My daughter had a bus lane fine and by the time we got it, it had already been doubled, it was about a month old, there’s been hospital appointments.
“Also, there’s some problems with the gas and electric metres, there hasn’t been any service and they can’t get in touch online, so they’re sending me a letter which I won’t get, so what happens then? We’ll have no gas, no heating and I know I won’t get it because there’s no post coming through.
“Hospital appointments getting lost in the post does worry me, because I’ve had breast cancer in the past, and if I have hospital check-ups then I have to keep on top of them.
“We’re not going to have any heating potentially in this 24 hour cold spell.”
Royal Mail have yet to comment publicly on the situation, but a similar occurance happened last year, with residents in Eccles going three months without post.
Despite this, Gillian can’t remember a time where it was this bad. She continued: “The last month has been terrible, I can’t remember the last time I saw the postman.
“When I order I try and avoid Royal Mail, because they’re just not reliable. Like I said, it’s been ten days and that has never ever happened. I can’t really remember last year, but it didn’t affect me as much as this year.”
According to Gillian, when she contacted Royal Mail, she was told that there was staff sickness, which was also reported last year with the delays.
However, Labour Councillors in Eccles are still maintaining that the recent delays are due staff being told to prioritise parcels, and Royal Mail making a list of importance, of which letters are placed at the bottom.
This picture shows that management are directing staff to deliver items on hierarchy, expecting that not all letters will be delivered each day. We’re concerned that doing this is breaking the universal service obligation which requires @RoyalMail to ensure mail is delivered pic.twitter.com/J0hIHMJ2HP
— Eccles Labour (@LabourEccles) December 6, 2022
In a statement, Royal Mail said: “Every item of mail is important to us. Royal Mail does not operate a policy of prioritising parcels. We regularly remind colleagues that the delivery, collection and processing of letters and parcels should be treated with equal importance.
“Due to the amount of space they take up, parcels can restrict the movement of both people and mail in our offices leading to health and safety issues and delays to other mail. At particularly busy times, such as in the recovery days after a strike, we may occasionally at a local level clear parcels to free up space and address health and safety concerns so that we can keep all mail – including letters – moving efficiently through our network.”
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