People in Gloucester missing hospital letters and wedding invites due to ongoing Royal Mail delays

People in Gloucester are missing hospital letters and wedding invitations amid ongoing Royal Mail delays, a councillor has said.

Those living in Abbeydale have reported problems with postal deliveries for several months with some people not having any post delivered for days.

Some have had late hospital appointment letters, while others have received birthday and wedding cards after the date.

Andrew Gravells, Conservative councillor for Abbeydale, said that he had raised this issue with the Royal Mail but they were ignoring him.

He said the issue first arose in February and at the time he had a meeting at the Gloucester North Sorting Office to try to understand why mail was being delivered so erratically.

He followed that up by writing to the Royal Mail head office and was reassured that the sorting office rounds had been amended to ensure that there would be an improvement in the way post is delivered - and for a while there was.

But Cllr Gravells says a few weeks ago it was clear that the sorting office was experiencing problems, so he asked residents online what their experience had been lately.

He said: “Firstly, the postmen and postwomen in Abbeymead and Abbeydale are the best, very efficient and very friendly, and that was really great feedback on the posties in my area which I agreed with 200 per cent.

“Of some concern though were the number of people who told me that they’d had things like hospital appointment letters delivered late, or birthday and wedding cards delivered after the actual day.

“So again, I wrote to the head office of Royal Mail asking a lot of questions about the post in my area, and that was three weeks ago now.

“Despite firing off a reminder a few days ago, I’ve yet to receive any sort of reply to my questions.

“My chaser email was acknowledged, and that was the sum of it to date. I’m not going to let this drop because my neighbourhood deserves much much better, and it’s just not on to have such a hit and miss system of postal deliveries here.”

Royal Mail has not responded to requests for comment.

Credit: Carmelo Garcia, Local Democracy Reporting Service.