People charged £5 for election leaflets after being told to collect mail from sorting office

A previous version of this article reported that voters were charged £5 as a result of Jonathan Bishop failing to apply stamps to election campaign letters. This was based on a statement provided by Royal Mail at the time the article was published. However, Royal Mail have since confirmed that in fact, the recipients were incorrectly surcharged and advised that "this was an isolated incident and due to human error and apologise for the inconvenience and have refunded those who paid the surcharge." We are happy to clarify this and the article has been amended accordingly.

Would-be voters were incorrectly charged £5 after being told to go a Royal Mail sorting office to collect incorrectly-labelled mail. Residents in Pontypridd were contacted by Royal Mail and told they had outstanding mail to collect from their nearest sorting office but without any indication what it was.

Those who chose to collect them were charged £5 and when they opened them discovered a piece of election campaigning from an independent candidate, Jonathan Bishop. Royal Mail has admitted human error was to blame and they have issued a refund.

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Plaid Cymru MS Heledd Fychan raised the issue in the Senedd and said: "Clearly something went very wrong and it’s imperative now that everyone that paid £5 to receive the election communication is refunded. Constituents paid thinking it was an important letter and were rightly angry when they found out what they paid for."

The candidate, Jonathan Bishop came last in the constituency results having secured 44 votes with Labour's Alex-Davies Jones elected with 16,225 votes. Mark Beech, on behalf of The Crocels Press Limited, said: "We became aware that some of the publicly-funded deliveries of leaflets we printed as part of the second wave of campaigning in Pontypridd were being delivered by Royal Mail at a charge to constituents, despite being handed over to Royal Mail in the usual manner.

"Some but not all of the 98 mailings issued had stickers placed on them by Royal Mail's Pontypridd Sorting Office by mistake, and Royal Mail have agreed with us to refund all those we can verify as being affected. Constituents should contact us if they are one of the 98 identified as part of the wave 2 campaign.

"Not all of the 98 were affected, with one reaching out to say they liked how personalised and professional the leaflet was. Nevertheless, we have issued apologies to all those who have contacted us as requested."

A spokeswoman for Royal Mail said: "This general election, we successfully delivered more than 184 million items of candidate mail to homes throughout the UK. In this instance, a handful of people were incorrectly surcharged. This was an isolated incident and due to human error. We apologise for the inconvenience and have refunded those who paid the surcharge.”