This morning I visited Eccles Sorting Office with Rebecca Long-Bailey MP to speak to senior Royal Mail staff about the appalling service that people in Eccles have experienced over the last couple of months.

Since November I have been in contact with Royal Mail raising cases directly on behalf of constituents and advocating for urgent changes to allow postal services to resume as normal and for all post to be delivered as soon as possible. With Rebecca Long-Bailey I wrote 2 letters to the Chief Executive of Royal Mail and also raised the issues at Eccles with the Postal Services Minister in a question in the House of Commons.

The reason that I have been given by Royal Mail managers for the problems with letter deliveries was that different delivery rounds were implemented in mid November. Royal Mail say that this, combined with staff absences due to Covid meant that a very large backlog of letters built up. The Royal Mail managers I spoke to now accept that the period leading up to Christmas was not the right time to implement a new delivery structure and also they admit that it is not right that people were left for many weeks without receiving any letters.

Royal Mail say that the operational changes to delivery rounds had to be brought in as the balance of delivery has changed with the majority of items being parcels rather than letter.

I have been assured that the letter delivery backlog at Eccles has now been cleared and I could see that the delivery rounds were not backlogged today.

However, if you are still experiencing delays in your post being delivered please let me know using the form below and I will look into it for you.