Villagers say Royal Mail deliveries are 'too few and too late'

Post being delivered three weeks late by Royal Mail has led to missed appointments and has impacted trade, according to residents and businesses.

People living in Poringland, near Norwich, said they have experienced issues with their post since July.

One woman said her father missed a hospital appointment and a jewellery seller said many customers blamed her for their orders arriving late.

Royal Mail (RM) has apologised for any "occasional" delay.

Post workers told the BBC that staffing had been cut recently, when more were needed to cover the area which has grown rapidly over recent years.

Helen Franklin, 63, first noticed she was not receiving regular deliveries at the beginning of September, when she was expecting birthday cards and medication through the post.

The drugs had been ordered on 1 September but had still not arrived when the BBC spoke to her on 25 September.

Helen Franklin was told by Royal Mail that it was prioritising parcels over letters

Mrs Franklin contacted her local post office - not part of Royal Mail - and was told there had been a problem with late deliveries for a few months.

She also contacted Royal Mail who told her the delays were due to it "restructuring the service".

"They said that letters cost too much to deliver and they had to prioritise parcels, and that if they didn't restructure we wouldn't have a postal service in the future," she said.

The delays also saw her father missing a hospital appointment, "which was quite stressful for him because he's elderly".

She said she wanted Royal Mail "to be honest" and explain it was "trying to provide a better service, but in the meantime you will only get deliveries once a week, once a fortnight".

GP practice manager, David Leigh, said they still relied on the post to send and receive important mail

David Leigh, practice manager at Old Mill Surgery, said it too had not received any post on a couple of occasions instead of daily deliveries.

"Those letters would potentially have medication changes, information that doctors needed to be made aware of, due to treatment in secondary care (hospital or specialist care)," he said.

"And that delay would affect that information being received or the med changes being made for the patients."

Sally Green, 40, runs an online jewellery business, Sweethearts and Darlings.

She said the postal delays meant she and others had only been getting deliveries once every seven to 10 days.

"For me as a small business that is just having a huge knock-on effect," she said.

"I'm having to order stock way in advance and hope it will eventually arrive.

"And as a business that posts everyday, I'm finding lots of areas in the UK where customers are just not receiving their items within the estimated delivery time that the [RM] websites are giving."

Jewellery-maker Sally Green said the late postal deliveries she relies on was affecting her business

Ms Green said the impact was a loss of customer satisfaction due to the poor delivery times.

"I'm left with many disgruntled customers... they blame me for the delay."

She said unfortunately using an alternative carrier would mean increased costs for her customers.

Ms Green said: "For me it's a Royal Mail problem, it's not the Post Office. It's a shortage of staff.

"To be honest, it feels like they don't want us to post letters anymore, that's what it feels like to us small businesses."

Royal Mail has apologised for any "occasional" delays

A Royal Mail worker, who wished to remain anonymous, said the problem lay with staff numbers being cut from six to five, and rounds which also covered the villages of Alpington and Yelverton being similarly compressed.

They said staffing had not kept pace with the size of the Poringland area, the population of which had expanded rapidly from 4,286 in 2011 to 8,100 in 2021.

They also said the priority for the RM was not letters but parcel deliveries.

"Some days, rounds are so big there is no time to deliver a single letter," they said.

A Royal Mail spokesman said it did not prioritise parcels over letters but that the numbers of parcels had increased whilst letters had fallen by 25%.

"Improving our level of service is our top priority and we are committed to restoring our service levels to where our customers expect them to be," he said.

"While on occasion there are delays, mail is being delivered daily across Norfolk."

It advised customers experiencing issues to contact them.

The regulator Ofcom is currently looking at the universal service agreement Royal Mail is required to fulfil and said delivering letters six days a week may need to evolve.