Residents of Syerla Road near Moygashel say they are “infuriated” by postal delays in the area. Locals have told Armagh I they have been forced to wait weeks for their post to be delivered.
Trevor, who lives on Syerla Road, says he hasn’t received any letters in “at least six weeks”.
“Our bills for our electric and bank letters, important things, they’re not being delivered”, he explains.
The problem has developed recently, with Trevor saying he has never had problems receiving post before.
He says he’s frustrated by the lack of action from Royal Mail.
“My wife has spoken to the post office and has complained about it, but they never came back to her”, he explains.
Cheryl, who also lives on Syerla Road, says she regularly waits weeks for her post to be delivered.
“We got stuff last week and there were about twelve letters”, she explains, “some of those were dated from the beginning of August. That’s how long they were sitting wherever they were sitting”.
Cheryl says she has also experienced problems receiving packages she has ordered.
“I’m currently waiting on parcels coming from Dublin”, she explains, “it’s three weeks ago they were posted and they still haven’t arrived”.
Cheryl believes problems receiving post in the area first began after the postal worker who had been delivering to Syerla Road retired.
“We used to have a postwoman here and everybody knew her and she knew everybody and there was never any issue”, she says.
“Since she’s retired it seems to be a bit ad hoc”.
Cheryl says that while she understands it can be challenging for a postal worker who is not familiar with the area to locate certain houses, the consequences of not delivering post on time can be serious.
“I know that there are people who have missed hospital appointments”, she explains.
“There’s no excuse for not delivering something. We all have clear numbers at the end of our drives”.
June, who also lives in the area, says it recently took over a month for “important” forms to be delivered to her.
“They were posted out on the fifth of July, and we only got them just over a week ago”, she explains.
She says that the problems locals are experiencing only developed recently.
“I would have thought the post was normally quite good in the past”, she explains “but I would say it has deteriorated. I don’t think we are getting postal services as often”.
Richard, who is another resident of Syerla Road, says he has mainly experienced problems receiving parcels.
He says that he has had particularly bad experiences dealing with Parcelforce, who are a subsidiary of Royal Mail.
Richard says that he ordered a chainsaw part which was meant to be delivered to him through Parcelforce.
He decided to come home from work early on the day the part was due to arrive so he could collect it from the delivery driver.
To Richard’s frustration his parcel wasn’t delivered.
He then received a message saying, “we attempted delivery and there was no-one home”.
“I was out in the garage”, Richard explains, “I could see him [the delivery driver] down the lane and he didn’t try [delivering the parcel] at all”.
“That cost me half a day’s holidays”.
Like other locals, Richard has also experienced problems reporting the issues he’s experienced to Royal Mail.
“You can’t get talking to a human”, he explains, “you ring a number and you get through to an automated service. They don’t seem to want any feedback”.
In a statement to Armagh I Royal Mail said they were unaware of any post taking weeks to be delivered on Syerla Road, saying: “While there have been some recent delays due to staff sickness, any affected mail is prioritised for delivery over the following one or two days. Our review found no cases of mail being delayed for weeks”.
“Our latest quality of service results show that 88.9% of First Class mail across Northern Ireland is delivered the next working day, against a target of 90%.”
