Postal closures 'led to delays'

People in Ellesmere are having their post delivered later and later since the town's Royal Mail delivery office closed its doors, it was claimed today.

The problems have come since the town's delivery office closed a week ago and the work transferred to Oswestry as part of a Royal Mail move to cut costs.

Royal Mail put the delays down to teething problems.

One Ellesmere man, who declined to be named, said since the closure, his post had been arriving later.

He said: "I am not happy at all with it and on Saturday I did not get my mail until 1.45pm.

"You should receive your mail with your breakfast, not with your afternoon tea."

Pete Holloway, Ellesmere Town Council clerk, said people were concerned about the late deliveries.

"We are obviously monitoring it because we are concerned our service is being delivered later," he said.

"I think we are going to let it run for a week or two."

Mike Dalton, Royal Mail spokesman, said last week had been a difficult week because staff from Ellesmere had to adapt to a completely new system.

He said: "Mail was being delivered, or certainly leaving the office later than prior to the move. We are talking about delays of no longer than an hour. While that isn't ideal, it certainly isn't extreme.

"We have already seen from today a vastly-improved situation in terms of the time the mail is going out.

"In terms of late deliveries, people should start from this week not noticing late deliveries and in some cases some of our customers will be getting a better service."