“25 million items” still stuck in the mail

by Sue Bailey

This post was written in October 2007; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

With the postal strike over for two weeks now, you’d be forgiven for thinking things were getting back to normal. But the Telegraph has some bad news for you: a secret warehouse in north London is storing thousands of items of undelivered mail.

Royal Mail bosses have estimated that up to 25 million items are still stuck throughout the system. What’s most worrying is that, according to one small business owner interviewed by the Telegraph, the parcels he has stuck in the football-pitch sized storage facility were not posted until 12th October, when RM staff were supposed to have returned to work. It seems even deliberately holding post back until the strike was over doesn’t proof your mail against the delays.

An RM spokesperson blamed wildcat strikes in east London for the backlog stored in the Barnet warehouse, but said that it had been “largely cleared”. Those small businesses still dealing with frustrated customers who think things are back to normal might beg to differ.

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Author: Sue Bailey
Posted at: Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Filed Under Featured
 

Comments

6 Responses to ““25 million items” still stuck in the mail”

  1. Simon Lister on October 29th, 2007 10:30 pm

    My local postmistress told me that the Royal Mail management have banned overtime to clear the backlog, as a result the postal workers are rather annoyed and are working rather slowly (she actually said this using words even a sailor would be shocked by!!) I just don’t see it getting any better as this time of year is busy enough anyway without a huge backlog!

  2. Sue Bailey on October 29th, 2007 10:38 pm

    The overtime-after-the-strike issue is a bit difficult, in my opinion. I don’t see why people should be paid overtime to clear up the mess that their strike action has caused: but equally, if the mess doesn’t get cleared, it’s RM’s customers who suffer, not their employees.

  3. Josordoni on October 29th, 2007 11:45 pm

    Hmph. Well I know where at least 10 of those parcels came from….

    My house, I reckon :(

  4. Louise on October 30th, 2007 8:56 am

    I bet there are quite a lot of these warehouses up and down the country. It’s an absolute disgrace. The main problem is that Joe Public has no clue as to the depth of the problems caused by the strikes. Because bills and letters are getting through (they are always given priority) regular folk think it’s all back to normal. Many of the items I posted the day the strike ended and also the few days before it began are unaccounted for.
    When is the next Royal Mail “undelivered mail” auction? It’s going to be a whopper!

  5. Des on October 31st, 2007 8:26 am

    My postie told me yesterday that they are to be balloted again soon regarding more strike action. Royal Mail are adamant they will go ahead with their flexi - time plan and the Union are dead against it - could mean another round of strikes coming soon.
    My postie only works part time as she has young kids and the new flexi rules would mean she would have to quit the job - however, she says that many colleagues are fed up with the strikes because of the lost of money and the grief they are getting from the public.

  6. Chris Dawson on October 31st, 2007 9:24 am

    “many colleagues are fed up with the strikes” Lets hope they make that abundantly clear to their union reps and find an alternative to striking then.

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