Mail bosses vow to learn lessons from post delays

The company said deliveries were today back to normal, with a review under way to avoid any further repeat of the disruption in the Capital over the past few weeks.

Paul Kelly, the Royal Mail's regional operations director, said postal workers had been hampered by icy pavements, describing the efforts to clear them as being "varied" across the country.

He said the company would be reviewing its operations with the hope of learning lessons from the "worst weather in 30 years".

He said: "We will have learned a lot of lessons, but I wouldn't like to say there won't be disruptions next winter if we face the worst weather in 31 years.

"We have apologised to customers. Clearly services have been disrupted and we're really disappointed."

Last week, unions claimed that a backlog of up to 2.5 million items was waiting to be delivered from the city's main mail centre, although mail bosses disputed the figure.

The company said it had retained a number of temporary seasonal workers, who would usually finish up their shifts on Christmas Eve, amid complaints from some people that they had still not received Christmas presents.

Mr Kelly said: "As of Tuesday, we started processing for deliveries to be done today, so we're back on track now.

"Clearly there have been issues around the country over the last few weeks, but we are now dealing with the last of the (Christmas] mail, the stuff that was not properly addressed.

"We've got to look at how we handled increases in packet mail (packages]; not just the volume of it, but the sizes of some of the pieces. Certainly we need to look at how we deal with that next year."

Last week, the Communication Workers Union said the mountain of mail at Edinburgh's Sighthill depot had been caused by the severe weather disruption and a shortage of workers over the festive period. During the most severe weather, a number of rounds could only be half- completed, or not at all, and several posties could not carry as large a weight as normal, the union said.

There have been complaints that some people have been waiting for Christmas presents, cards and letters dating back to the start of December.

Some Evening News readers said they had received more than two dozen pieces of post in just two days at the end of last week. Many, however, reported that they were aware of presents and Christmas cards they had been sent that were not yet delivered.

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