Royal Mail delivery

[Reg Smeeton]

.

[Sue]

Rockets Wrote:

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> What annoys me is that we, the consumer, are the

> ones who suffer.

>

> Management and unions, seemingly, supported the

> closure of the Silvester Road office and we are

> the ones who are feeling the pain - who was

> looking after our interests?

Helen Hayes was very proactive at the time, however very few local residents seemed to care. Too late now, when the predictable results have happened!

At least, there were hardly any people at the demo which Helen attended outside the Silvester Road office, at a time when a final decision hadn't yet been made by Royal Mail.

Equally, there were very few residents at a local meeting about the move (which Helen Hayes also attended, and at which one of the union reps spoke at - and yes, was very half hearted and quite embarrassing. It wasn't clear whether he was for or against the move).

Suggestions were made as to various options within ED for a DO which was fit for purpose, but none of these were apparently considered by Royal Mail.

I don't understand the point made above about London Weighting, as I would have thought ED came within the area for Royal Mail staff to get London Weighting, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Sue]

sandyman Wrote:

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> I've been more active on this thread recently than

> I usually am on EDF and I'll explain why.

>

> When I got a few Xmas cards earlier this week one

> of them, sent a month ago, contained some personal

> bad news about the sender. I'd spoken to them a

> number of times on email over Christmas but

> because I hadn't received the card I was unaware

> of their change of circumstances and had sent them

> a number of lighthearted messages and talked about

> numerous trivial things in my life not realising

> what was going on in their life.

>

> I now feel very bad about this, while they

> presumably think I didn't care about what they

> were going through.

>

> This is probably a minor issue in the global

> scheme of things, but it's just one of the

> consequences of the postal debacle. I'm sure there

> are a lot more stories like this out there.

> Probably plenty that are a lot, lot worse than

> mine.

That's terrible. So sorry.

[Blah Blah]

Royal Mail is still pretty much the only postal service for letters/ cards etc. So lack of competition is why they don't care. A different matter though when it comes to tracked parcels and items for which there is a lot of other courier competition, although they manage to lose a fair few of those too. We used UPS for all our parcels before Xmas and everything arrived the next day. Haven't seen a single Xmas card through Royal Mail yet. Last year we got those during the second week of January. Clearly they dump non tracked items in a corner over xmas and sort them when they get round to it. But what can any of us do about that? Nothing.

[Lynne]

Feature about it on the news tonight, though mainly focusing on Crystal palace which is having the same problems.

Load of flannel in reply from Royal Mail

[Sue]

Lynne Wrote:

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> Load of flannel in reply from Royal Mail

What were their excuses/reasons for the months of appalling service?

How long has Crystal Palace been having problems? Surely not as long as ED?!

[Penguin68]

I don't understand the point made above about London Weighting, as I would have thought ED came within the area for Royal Mail staff to get London Weighting, but maybe I'm wrong.

I believe Sylvester Road is classed as Outer London, Highshore Road as Inner London, so has a higher London Weighting allowance (at least, that's what a postie told me). When I worked for the Post Office, before BT split away in 1981, the two allowance rates existed, and I assume they still do .

[sandyman]

I caught the story on evening BBC news - looked to me like they were pretty much blaming it all on Covid causing lack of staff.

As i said in an earlier post this might be a current factor but it's clear that the SE22 problems predate the pandemic.

Sue - thanks for your sympathy, that's appreciated. On a more flippant level I wasted a lot of stamps on letters that i now wish I'd delivered by hand. I expect I'm not alone.

Sue Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Lynne Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> ----

> > Load of flannel in reply from Royal Mail

>

>

> What were their excuses/reasons for the months of

> appalling service?

>

> How long has Crystal Palace been having problems?

> Surely not as long as ED?!

[ab29]

A petition has been started to fix broken postal services in Dulwich and Peckham:

https://www.change.org/p/residents-of-east-dulwich-fix-the-broken-postal-service-in-east-dulwich?recruiter=false&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_medium=whatsapp&utm_content=washarecopy_31959587_en-GB%3A7&recruited_by_id=a2190e30-7048-11ec-b471-21f7608791b2

Check your inbox as the signature needs confirming (I missed it initially).

[geh]

In any other world taking money for a service when you have either no ability, or no intention of delivering that service is called fraud.

So frustrating, and I have no confidence that anything currently in the sorting office will ever be delivered.

[Sue]

Penguin68 Wrote:

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> I don't understand the point made above about

> London Weighting, as I would have thought ED came

> within the area for Royal Mail staff to get London

> Weighting, but maybe I'm wrong.

>

> I believe Sylvester Road is classed as Outer

> London, Highshore Road as Inner London, so has a

> higher London Weighting allowance (at least,

> that's what a postie told me). When I worked for

> the Post Office, before BT split away in 1981, the

> two allowance rates existed, and I assume they

> still do .

When I googled, the whole of Southwark is classed as an Inner London borough, but maybe Royal Mail define Inner London differently.

[Penguin68]

I am simply going on what I was told, that there was a pay differential between being based in Sylvester Road and Highshore Road. Southwark certainly counts as an inner London Borough, although I suspect Camberwell might not have, before they were joined. We're clearly at the very fringes of 'inner London' in ED.

[Sue]

Penguin68 Wrote:

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>We're clearly at the very

> fringes of 'inner London' in ED.

That's true (blooming ULEZ) but Highshore Road is not very far from ED.

[Rockets]

Let's hope the petition acts as a catalyst for our local councillors and MP to actually try and fix the issue for us. We have had three years of photo ops, hollow words and no resolution - time for someone to show some leadership and actually try and fix it.

I do feel for them though as they were clearly caught between a rock and a hard place if the union supported the move to Highshore as they couldn't be seen to be trying to scupper that.

[Castleton]

Signed the petition, although it's low numbers still!!

I ordered my daily contact lenses early because of the delays...arrived in 2 days like normal! Wonder if that's because it's plastered with 'Tracked' all over

[redjam]

I've signed. We got two more Christmas cards today (!) but still no sign of three parcels (one of which was a birthday present for the beginning of December) that have been missing for weeks. I complained online but got a standard response which amounted to 'suck it up, it's Covid'. There seems to be no accountability whatsoever.

[kissthisguy]

Just received a bundle of Christmas cards, which I know were sent early Dec. It's hopeless. Thanks for posting the petition, have signed.

[Sue]

Did anybody actually read through that petition, or even check it for spelling and punctuation errors, before putting it online?

I'm not sure that "demanding" things is likely to make those with the power to change things very sympathetic to the cause 🙄

Even the name of the road the ED delivery office was in is spelled wrongly, or else a typo. Hardly gives a good impression. Sorry to be so negative.

[TheCat]

It's awful....Mrs cats Xmas present hasn't arrived, amongst other things....

Here's a good example of the fact that this govt is soo shit.....it's not just brexit (yep, every thread:))......

[savvygirl]

Just received a parcel ordered on 1st Dec containing Christmas crackers and Christmas tree baubles! Not just a bit late but well late. In good time for next year though! Is the current situation really all down to Covid or is there a shortage of staff due to cut-backs? I believe a lot of staff were laid off. Royal Mail was always so reliable, not any longer it seems!

[teetomthomas]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/07/vince-cable-recalled-mps-royal-mail-privatisation

[Lynne]

5 cards this morning

[Reg Smeeton]

I subscribe to a weekly magazine. The last issue I received was the one for 11th December. I wonder if subscribers or publishers can get any compensation when customers are not receiving material that they've paid for. I'm not feeling litigious, but this must be really hurting some publishers.

[Artemis]

Agreed - I have the same issue and the publishers are being very good about it, but it must be damaging them.

[Shaun1234]

I purchased my fiancee's Xmas present on 16th December next day delivery Royal Mail and this still hasn't arrived?

Contacted the retailer and they contacted royal mail and have said the local post depot is stricken with covid and this is why

The backlog is simply unacceptable though!

its almost a month late from next day guaranteed!