Residents in the Ryde, Binstead and Wootton areas have been forced to start collecting their own post from the sorting office as Royal Mail has failed to deliver, with some locals waiting over 2 weeks for their mail.
Earlier this week Island Echo reported on the significant delays being faced in the Ryde area, with reports from readers that letters had not been delivered in days or weeks. Some have said that letters only arrive when a parcel is being delivered.
The true extent of the problem has now become clear with residents queueing outside the Ryde sorting office at Nicholson Road in a bid to finally get hold of their mail, which in some cases includes important hospital appointments which have been missed.
It’s claimed that Royal Mail is up to 25 posties short due to illness. Despite this, the regulated postal delivery service says it still aims to deliver every other day instead of its usual 6-days-a-week service. However, swathes of Island residents say this is simply not the case.
Under the Postal Services Act 2011, Royal Mail has to provide at least 1 delivery of letters every Monday to Saturday to every address in the UK. They are failing to meet this legal requirement.
It’s unclear when the situation will ease and whether other sorting offices on the Island at Sandown and Newport will see similar problems in the near future.
Island Echo approached Royal Mail for a statement earlier today (Thursday), questioning why customers are having to collect their post and addressing that the company is failing to meet its obligations. The response was quite simply:
“We’ve nothing further to add to our statement”.
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Royal Mail’s previous statement said:
“In the Ryde area, we are experiencing some disruption to service due to COVID related and other sickness absence.
“We aim to deliver to all addresses we have mail for, six days a week. If resourcing issues, associated self-isolation and safety measures prevent this, we’ll deliver at least every other day.
“We apologise to customers for any inconvenience they may experience as we work hard to resolve the situation.”
At least the mail will go to the right houses this way!
Blame the management. They push the posties so damn hard. Just goes to show that covid figures are much higher than being reported properly, come on echo, find out really how high they are. There is a challenge for you…..
that would be why the letter I received from the NHS inviting me for a flu jab at a clinic, was received after the date of the clinic and also why a friend of mine arrived at St Marys for an appointment, to be told that it had been re-arranged and a letter had been sent, which arrived after the re-arranged appointment date.
It is about time the NHS moved to email letters or even text messages.
They do send text messages for appointments providing you consent to it which you probably haven’t.
Never been asked about it – just get letters sent – didn’t even know that they would, otherwise I would not have mentioned it in the comment I made and I would have turned up!!
On the other hand, with the past history of NHS data handling and system security failures, do you REALLY trust them to keep such information secure?!
Customer relations must be off sick too.
So I’ll get my Christmas cards around February right?
We all have people ill at this difficult time but we still keep the service I work for my last post was over 6 weeks ago so this comment about getting one delivery a week is rubbish
Having until recently been employed by RM I can say this is a situation thar shareholders are embracing. Every day a delivery doesn’t get done it’s a saving in hours. At the office I was at we effectively had an overtime ban so even if we were able and willing to work our scheduled day off we weren’t allowed. They would rather us come in to 2 or 3 days of undelivered Mail .the upsurge in parcels during the pandemic was phenomenal but unlike ever other company that employed more staff to cope….RM expected its current level of staffing just to absorb it.
Not just royal mail having issues, hermes has had my parcel since the 1.10.21 and not been delivered yet. Keeps getting delayed for 24 hours with no reason given. Just hope it will be delivered soon and not sent back to sender.
I had same problem with Hermes. Eventually they told me that they couldn’t trace it at the depot where it had sat for a week so I got in touch with the sender to get a refund or replacement. Lo and behold today I’ve received an email saying it’s now with my courier!! Mind you I won’t hold my breath until it’s in my hands. All hopeless. I’ve also had two Royal Mail parcels due today and I have a safe place and my postie always leaves them but not today ! Things I’d ordered and needed today!! So annoying as now I’ve either got to collect them or rearrange delivery but that’ll now be next week so paying for 24 hour delivery is pointless!
Well I’ve actually managed to speak to a person at hermes today and was told “that if the parcel is not delivered within the next 48 hours then unfortunately it is lost and there is nothing hermes can do” I have to seek a refund from the seller.. Glad you almost have your parcel though.
I had quite a lot of post this week, including 3 parcels, so I’m not complaining, in Ryde too. Maybe it’s just certain areas. The post people do a good job out in all weathers.
Newport where i live had this about a month ago no letters delivered for 10 days, did not know why at the time!
But the covidiots tell us it’s just a cold? Then how is the country falling apart with companies seing up to 20% sickness rate. Remoaners say it’s brexit. It’s not, it’s our crap government allowing covid to run riot now the rich are safe with their vaccine. Instead of jumping the queue waving their privileged about they should be vaccinating the real workers. The ones who really make the country tick.
Unless you live under a rock basically everyone willing to have the jab has had one.
because companies are expected to pay staff if off sick with alleged covid, which they do not have to prove. Being off with covid, also does not affect the attendance record and as such, is not applied to any disciplinary settings for lack of attendance.
people are blagging it – if you live far enough away from work and colleagues, no one is going to know that you are off with alleged covid and as such, you won’t be self isolating – just avoiding facebook posting.
It’s for the simple reason that people are still using the Covid app which tells them to self isolate if they’ve been near anyone with a positive test result. Employees get several days off work, fully paid, even if they don’t have the virus. It’s called ping-demic and it’s what’s crippling a lot of businesses.
It’s a bit ironic you calling people ‘covidiots’ when it’s nothing to do with rich people and vaccines! Everyone who wants a vaccine has been offered one.
If you’re double jabbed there’s no requirement to self isolate now and companies need to tell them this!
Sorry 18 months!!
Too many people are knocking services, since this awful virus hit us , all was okay not perfect but pretty good. Posties walked their round without too much trouble so did most other services
covid has affected us all including the service industries
stop bloody moaning get on with life