ROYAL Mail has issued a warning of major delivery delays in 14 areas across the UK.
The Post Office said the outages were a result of staff shortages.
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Royal Mail has issued a large delivery warning for 14 areasCredit: Getty
The postal service has announced on its website that it intends to deliver six days a week – but for some unlucky Britons services will be massively delayed this week.
This is partly due to the large number of employees on sick leave.
The company said: “We aim to deliver to all addresses for which we have mail, six days a week.
“In a small number of local offices this may not be possible temporarily due to local issues such as high levels of sickness absence, resources or other local factors.”
Royal Mail added that understaffed offices will receive extra support to help reduce delays for customers in the affected areas.
It will also commit to “rotating deliveries to minimize delays to individual customers”.
It added: “We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.
“We will regularly update clients on the most affected offices.”
Royal Mail deliveries are made every day of the week except Sunday.
First class mail is delivered the day after dispatch, while second class mail should arrive two days after that.
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However, a complex system may detect delays caused by only one aspect of the mail service that has problems.
This could be disruption to postal centres, air mail, road or rail transport, and local factors may also play a role.
Check the list below to see if your zip code has been affected by the outages:
List of postcodes affected by Royal Mail delays
- Alnwick TO (NE66 to NE71)
- Ashington TO (NE22, NE62, NE63 and NE64)
- Billesdon SPDO (LE7)
- Boston TO (PE20, PE21 and PE22)
- Dudley DO (DY1 – DY3)
- Heywood DO (OL10)
- Hull Malmo Road TO (HU6 – HU8, HU11, HU16 and HU20)
- Hungerford DO (RG17)
- Huntingdon DO (PE26 – PE29)
- Lanark DO (ML11 and ML18)
- Leicester East TO (LE1, LE2, LE5, LE7 and LE21)
- Manchester South East TO (M11, M12, M13 and M18)
- Sleaford DO (NG34)
- Southgate TO (N14)
This comes after Royal Mail appealed to the Government and Ofcom to review its commitments, arguing that it was no longer feasible or cost-effective, given the drop in the number of letters addressed.
In its submission to Ofcom in April, it proposed scrapping Saturday deliveries for second-class mail and cutting the service to every other working day.
Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s group director for networks and communications, said: “If we decide to propose changes to the universal service next year, we want to make sure we get the best outcome for consumers.
“So we are now looking at whether we can bring universal service back to a flat level in a way that meets people’s needs.
“But this will not be a free pass for Royal Mail – in any scenario, it needs to invest in its network, become more efficient and improve its service levels.”
Royal Mail owner International Distribution Services (IDS), which agreed to a £3.57 billion takeover by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinski in May, said “change cannot come fast enough” to the UK postal service.
Royal Mail also scrapped the old stamps and replaced them with barcoded ones last July.
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