Urgent letters 'go missing' as residents face week without mail deliveries, councillors claim
Urgent medical letters and vital documents have either been delayed or gone missing amid a series of Leicestershire postal delivery issues. Councillors have claimed that some residents are often going a week between deliveries due to the problems.
The issue, which has been raised by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council, has seen them call on Royal Mail managers to meet with councillors to hear concerns about problems with post deliveries across the borough. The move came following this week’s meeting of the full council, where Councillor Ann Pendlebury spoke of issues being experienced by residents in her Hinckley ward.
She said: “Royal Mail is a vital service and we all know and appreciate our highly recognisable, visible, daily delivery post person who is working extremely hard often under difficult conditions to do their level-best despite increased round sizes.
READ MORE: Royal Mail set to axe part of Saturday service amid new reforms
“But despite all their hard work, our most vulnerable residents are being let down as they fail to get timely deliveries of mail missing vital NHS appointments, contact from family and friends and many other essential communications that our most vulnerable particularly rely on.”
Coun Pendlebury put forward a motion to invite Royal Mail managers to meet with council members to talk about the issue. The motion also raised concerns about the cost of stamps following recent price increases and requested the council's chief executive write to his Royal Mail counterpart to express concerns about mail deliveries. They also wanted to express their thanks to “hard-working postal staff for their continued efforts".
Councillor Martin Cartwright, who represents Groby, and who seconded Coun Pendlebury’s motion, told the meeting: “Some roads have gone a whole week without any mail.” He revealed he had been waiting for an important medical letter and had to ask for it to be re-sent when it didn’t arrive. Both letters then arrived on the same day, despite being posted 15 days apart, he said.
Calling for national action, Councillor James Moore – who stood as candidate for Rutland and Stamford in this year’s general election – said he had heard from people who didn’t receive their postal votes in time for the election. He said he had also sent out campaign-related post to constituents, which sometimes didn’t arrive or was late, and that other candidates across all political parties had experienced the same problem.
He said: “That seems to be a disgrace in a civilised modern democratic society that we can’t even get postal votes out to people. When you get to the situation the national postal service is so bad it’s actually compromising both the integrity and operation for the election, there really has to be action at a national level.”
Councillors also expressed concerns about mooted reforms to postal deliveries, which they feared would make the situation worse.
Coun Pendlebury told Leicestershire Live after the meeting she frequently heard from people who had received important mail much later than expected, including one woman whose bus pass failed to arrive at all. She said: “This isn't the fault of our posties, who are coming under increasing pressure to get the mail out with fewer resources. It clearly isn't the service that we used to get from the Royal Mail. I'm not sure what needs to happen to ensure this essential service is retained and improved, but I'm very glad this motion was backed by the full council, and I look forward to hearing the responses from Royal Mail.”
Coun Cartwright also revealed after the meeting he had spoken to postal workers about their experiences. He said: “Days off are not covered, either due to insufficient staff or cost saving initiatives, resulting in the failure to deliver on those days and double the workload the following day – only adding to the pressure they face. Businesses of course have to adapt and change over time but those changes seem to be having a negative impact on the daily delivery people as well as the end user, you and I.”
A Royal Mail spokesperson said the organisation had already received the council’s letter and “will respond in due course”. The spokesperson added: “We deliver millions of first class letters throughout the UK every single day and the vast majority arrive on time. We have taken considerable action to continue to improve quality of service for first and second class letters and parcels, including the increased recruitment of permanent employees, new initiatives to reduce sick absence and improve retention and the deployment of a quality control centre.”
The spokesperson added that first and second class stamps cost less than “European mean averages”, but that the amount of letters fell by more than 13 billion between 2004 and 2024, while the number of UK addresses rose by four million in the same timeframe.
“An ever-decreasing number of letters to an ever-growing number of households six days a week is increasingly expensive and unsustainable,” the spokesperson said. “The Universal Service Obligation (USO) – which requires Royal Mail to deliver letters to all 32 million UK addresses, six days a week – needs urgent reform. Ofcom calculates that providing the current universal service to the UK costs the company £1million to £2m every day. The savings made from our proposal for USO reform would allow Royal Mail to continue to invest in the modernisation and transformation of the business to provide products and services that customers want and reduce its environmental impact.”
Coun Pendlebury’s motion was approved unanimously.
We are now bringing you the latest updates on Whatsapp first