Royal Mail customers have resorted to ditching stamps and sending letters via its tracked service in a desperate bid to ensure they arrive on time, insiders have claimed.
Posties have warned that the letter backlog in some depots has worsened due to staff shortages, forcing consumers to resort to more expensive options to dodge the delays.
Residents of one forgotten ‘Bermuda triangle’ town say they have to wait as long as five weeks between deliveries – with one cancer sufferer receiving 41 letters when his postman finally visited.
It comes as the troubled delivery giant has announced it will increase the price of stamps again next month, with first-class increasing by 10p to £1.35 and second-class also by 10p to 85p.
A year ago, a first-class stamp cost 95p before jumping to £1.10 in April 2023, with another 15p rise in October.
File photo. Royal Mail has said it will increase the price of stamps again next month
Royal Mail’s chief commercial officer Nick Landon said the price hikes were considered ‘very carefully’, adding: ‘It is no longer sustainable to maintain a network built for 20 billion letters when we are now only delivering seven billion.’
Last year, the Royal Mail was accused of prioritising lucrative tracked parcels such as Amazon deliveries over letters, resulting in Britons missing out on vital post including hospital appointments, bank cards, and important documents.
The firm has long denied claims that it’s breaching the Universal Service Obligation, which legally requires it to deliver letters every day for six days a week.
But posties say that increasing numbers of letters are being sent through the tracked service to prevent them from sitting around and collecting dust.
One postwoman who works in the north of England said her depot received ‘an absolute truck load’ of Valentine’s Day cards posted with tracked labels.
‘People are paying around £2 to £3 for that label, instead of £1.25 for a stamp. The public are on to it, even they are realising it is standard practice that tracked goods will be prioritised over letters,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen that before.’
A postman based in the south of England said: ‘I’ve told all my customers that if there’s something you want to see get there, send it tracked. The message is getting out to the public that their stuff is getting ignored otherwise.’
He revealed that colleagues at a nearby depot face a backlog of over two weeks. ‘People have just given up because you don’t stand a chance,’ he said. The Daily Mail is not naming the posties, nor the county they work in.
Sending a letter up to 750g costs £3.30 for Tracked24 or £2.70 for Tracked48. The service, which was traditionally a means of sending parcels, ensures it will be delivered within either 24 or 48 hours, offers compensation of up to £150 if the item goes missing and provides photo evidence that the delivery has taken place.
Last year, the Royal Mail was accused of prioritising lucrative tracked parcels such as Amazon deliveries over letters (File photo)
One mother of two from Cheshire recently told the BBC how both her children missed hospital appointments – and one an operation – as the Royal Mail failed to deliver NHS letters on time. Jasmine Moulton’s local hospital called to tell her that her five-year-old daughter, Harper, who has severe skin allergies, and son Joshua, three, who has problems breathing and swallowing, had missed important medical care.
‘I was like, ‘pardon?’ And I was in a bit of shock,’ Ms Moulton said. ‘I explained that we hadn’t had any post come through.
‘She sounded shocked. It stresses me out every day because I just think, how many other appointments have we missed?’
In November, Ofcom, which regulates the postal industry, fined Royal Mail £5.6 million for failing to meet delivery targets. A spokesman for Royal Mail, which reported a £1 billion loss in May last year, denied the public were ditching stamps, adding that Valentine’s Day cards sent via tracked services was not unusual.
‘This represents a misunderstanding of how and why tracked services are used. There has been no discernible increase in tracked letters sent by members of the public,’ they insisted.
‘The vast majority of letters are delivered on time. However, more must be done and improving our service remains our top priority.’ Last month Ofcom outlined cost-saving plans to cut deliveries from six days a week to five or even three. Another option would be to scrap next-day mail delivery unless senders pay extra.
The extraordinary cost-cutting proposals faced a backlash from small firms, consumer groups, unions and Downing Street.
Ofcom boss Melanie Dawes, addressing the Philip Geddes Memorial Lecture, has even spoken of suffering delays herself, going for up to ten days without deliveries before getting a ‘big pile’ in a ‘huge elastic band’.
‘Bermuda triangle’ where we can wait FIVE weeks for post
A daily postal service is a distant dream for residents of a forgotten ‘Bermuda triangle’ town who say they have to wait as long as five weeks between letter deliveries.
One cancer sufferer nearly missed vital check-ups after his post stopped arriving, with a staggering 41 letters dropping on his mat when the postman finally visited.
Meanwhile a widow in her eighties was left with a broken letterbox after several weeks’ worth of post was shoved through at once.
David Jones (L) is among those who have gone five weeks without mail
Long-suffering residents of the Lancashire town of Skelmersdale are in despair over the apparently intractable mystery of what has happened to their once-reliable postmen and women, with around 6,000 addresses not receiving daily deliveries.
‘We had nothing for four weeks, then finally 41 letters came bursting through the front door,’ said Bryan Wareing, 87, a retired trading standards officer being treated for cancer. ‘I know Royal Mail are struggling to deliver the post six days a week, but we’d settle for getting it once a week.’
Neighbour David Jones, 75, and his wife Dorothy, 76, have gone as long as five weeks without mail. ‘I had to go down to the local sorting office and they handed me 15 letters and an Amazon parcel,’ Mr Jones explained.
Widow Celia Fairhurst, 84, a former nurse, often waits two weeks or more for deliveries. ‘When the postman finally turned up he stuffed 14 letters and two magazines through the letterbox, breaking it,’ she said.
Last year residents had to queue in freezing conditions outside the local depot. Royal Mail blamed staff on sick leave, vowing no address would be missed two days running.
Ashley Dalton, Labour MP for West Lancashire, has met local managers in Skelmersdale and neighbouring Ormskirk to demand improvements. She said they had pledged daily deliveries for 85 per cent of residents – but that leaves around 6,000 households in Skelmersdale alone missing out each day. ‘It has been clear there are still areas where mail is not delivered this quickly,’ she said.
A Royal Mail spokesman said ‘unique circumstances’ had hit Skelmersdale, but insisted matters were ‘improving’, adding: ‘As of last week more than 90 per cent of mail was delivered on time.’
