Robert Halfon MP: Royal Mail managers continue to let down residents across the town
News / Thu 19th Oct 2023 at 07:10am
Statement from the Rt. Hon. Robert Halfon MP Royal Mail Postal Services in Harlow
DESPITE the efforts of the hard working postmen and women in Harlow, Royal Mail managers continue to let down residents across the town – the service they are providing for Harlow people is simply not good enough. It is wrong that letters and parcels which have been sent are not being delivered on time, if at all, despite the correct postage being paid.
At present, my constituents tell me that they are lucky to receive one postal delivery every two weeks and, even then, they have been told by Royal Mail staff that only deliveries including parcels are being prioritised. I understand this issue is affecting addresses in the CM17, CM18, CM19 and CM20 postcode areas.
The people of Harlow deserve a reliable, efficient and safe postal service to deliver parcels and letters. I have heard countless examples of missed hospital appointments, delayed birthday and celebration greetings and cancelled orders due to Royal Mail’s failure to deliver. This is simply unacceptable.
Royal Mail has a universal service obligation and they must take urgent action to restore deliveries across Harlow and to clear the backlog. In recent weeks, the service the people of Harlow have received from Royal Mail has fallen far below the standard I and my constituents expect and, despite raising my concerns locally and with colleagues in the Public Affairs department, the service in Harlow has not improved.
As a result, I have escalated my concerns within Royal Mail and have raised my concerns with the Government. Despite having written to Royal Mail’s Chief Executive Officer in September to express my concerns and to demand a better service for Harlow people, I am yet to receive a satisfactory response that reassures me of an imminent and significant increase in performance.
It is clear to me that senior management within Royal Mail do not care enough to take the action required, instead blaming their poor performance on staff recruitment issues. The hardworking postmen and women in Harlow do not deserve to be overworked nor blamed for what seems to me to be a case of poor leadership and management.
Therefore, I am once again calling on Royal Mail to take decisive action to address their operational issues in Harlow and deliver a postal service in which my constituents and I can have confidence.
Just one of many privatisation disasters.
Three days runnning we have had texts from Royal Mail saying "Unable to Attempt Delivery". This is for medications that are needed and were shipped on a 48 hour guaranteed delivery last Friday. From what I understand the shipment is just sitting in the Harlow delivery office. They have not even tried to deliver to us, yet we have seen Post Office vans in our road.
Royal Mail are chasing profits, that's what privatised companies do. Delivering letters isn't profitable, but delivering parcels is profitable, so privatised Royal mail delivers parcels first and occasionally, as an afterthought, if you're lucky some letters. This is the result of the privatisation you voted for Mr Halfon, you have no right to complain, you should be apologising.
It's the same all over the country. I'm a postie in Brighton and we are told every day to prioritise packets over letters. Caroline Lucas is constantly phoning our office about constituents complaints. It should never have been privitised. Where's offcom?
You are lucky you don't live in France. Ocassionally we recieve letters up to 5 months old, virtually no parcels ever arrive so we now have to send evrrything by courier. And of course the post office is complaing they aren't making any money.
You are lucky you don't live in France. Ocassionally we recieve letters up to 5 months old, virtually no parcels ever arrive so we now have to send evrrything by courier. And of course the post office is complaing they aren't making any money.
Waiting for hospital appointments and then losing them and having to go through the whole process again!!! Sack the lot of them!!!!
Should have never been sold off
You sold it off. Not only did you sell it off, you didn't give an appropriate body the powers to enforce their SLAs.
The hypocrisy is astounding! Sell off Royal Mail and then complain that the private company fails the public. It’s the same story with all of the hived off utilities. Profits for shareholders, miserable service for customers. Halfons crocodile tears are fooling no-one, his failed political ideology is the root cause of this shambles.
Same old story.Privatised utilities water,gas and electric along with privatised trains don't work for the general population they work for increasing profits for shareholders .Water companies put shit in our rivers,gas and electric charge farcical amounts if you consider the profits they make and the trains even without strike action occurring do not run on time.Privatised postal services are the same profit before service.Its time this corrupt business mode of operation ended because people are sick to the back teeth of nothing working properly in this country.Service before profit not the other way around please.Finally posties on regular rounds I know go out of their way to provide a good customer service unfortunately their hands are tied by some managers who have no experience of doing a postal delivery themselves and therefore the pressure put on the frontline staff is unrealistic considering also being a walking postie probably against popular belief is infact a very physically demanding job.
The issue with the Royal mail isn't privatisation it's archaic work practices and inflexible staffing,
Am in Old Harlow and our regular and absolutely fantastic postie left to work nearer his home. He was never replaced, despite leaving over a year ago. There are staffing issues for sure as on the rare occasion we get post, the chap that comes now said there are simply not enough posties in Harlow anymore and people are leaving in droves. Just yesterday I waited in all day for a parcel for it never to arrive, nor the delivery tracking be updated to tell me it's not coming. Make the post office a good place to work and people will come back!
They told the receiver they had tk pay a fee to receive there parcel as mtge size/weight was wrongly payed. It was rightly paid, I had to make a complaint to get a cheque and an apology this blames the person who posts the item when it’s the post office fault for not categorising things correctly all in total with the fee they charged it would of been a little less then £6!! To deliver a large envelope
It’s a disgrace , with what ever reasons they give, I feel sorry for the postman as they get it in the neck from most people, all we want is our Mail, I’m under extreme pressure and can’t move forward until I receive certain letters!, I went to collect but it was shut, the times they do for collection I can’t do, utter shambles as normal in this country…..
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