How often do Royal Mail Delivery?

Retro6

Retro6

Retro6

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30 Jan 2019
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953
Are Royal Mail supposed to deliver everyday? It would seem they only work Thursdays in my area. Any other days, there is no sign of of them. It can be very annoying when tracking on a parcel shows that its expected to arrive and your waiting in all day and nothing... no sign of the postman. 4 days go by and still nothing.

I live in London so I would have thought there would be a regular service.
 
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tom_e said:
And in the real world it seems to come down to how hammered your local delivery office is getting.
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There was a Panorama episode about this recently where people on a new build estate were having to drive to the sorting office to pick up their mail otherwise they may not end up getting it.
 
Retro6 said:
Are Royal Mail supposed to deliver everyday? It would seem they only work Thursdays in my area. Any other days, there is no sign of of them. It can be very annoying when tracking on a parcel shows that its expected to arrive and your waiting in all day and nothing... no sign of the postman. 4 days go by and still nothing.

I live in London so I would have thought there would be a regular service.
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How long is a piece of string.

RM are legally meant to deliver 6 days a week if there is post to deliver, and have 1st class arrive next delivery day if posted Mon-Sat with no difference in how they handle tracked and untracked.

However around my way it seems that it is highly variable, and they're definitely fiddling the delivery targets as we keep getting tracked items arrive either hours after the normal post, hours after the normal post should have been delivered (but nothing was), or on Sunday evenings when it should have been delivered Saturday (I'm guessing the tracking doesn't mark it late unless it's scanned on the next official delivery day).

I ordered my father some shoes (he needed size 14's) with a week's leeway for him as he had a hospital appointment and his feet had swollen, the package apparently made something like 3 attempts to arrive at the local depot before going into hiding for a week and eventually arriving after 2 weeks for what should have been next day...
 
seems like 1-3 times a week here.

I ordered loads of seeds recently and I had deliveries 4 days in a row.
I know for a fact at least 1 of them didn't come in the regular post, I clocked a royal mail van pull up late in the afternoon to deliver a small letter sized packet that was sent via regular 1st class untracked.
as @Werewolf says they are fudging first class delivery stats by sending them out separate from the normal post

I live in at the edge of a city centre though so we might get more priority than people in the suburbs and small villages
 
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Anyone else ever get a Sunday delivery? I was surprised when it happened the other week, apparently trailing in some areas.
 
jklc said:
Anyone else ever get a Sunday delivery? I was surprised when it happened the other week, apparently trailing in some areas.
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Usually around Christmas, but also if the situation at the local delivery office is messed up enough that they need to try and clear a backlog or have a bunch of tracked items that are about to show up the delay in the stats.

We've been getting tracked items arriving (often from a different delivery office) at 5-7pm on a semi regular basis for a while, including on sundays. Actual letters, and untracked stuff might take 3-4 days first class, but tracked makes it through...

As I say, I suspect RM management are massaging the delivery stats.
 
It looks like the 6 day letter service is going to be downgraded to 5 days at most, but lightly 3. Their Union is fighting it, but it's an unwinnable battle.

Either way, letter deliveries will be sub par as the ideal result of 3 day deliveries for letters will still result in posties quiting in large numbers still, due to increased walking distances. The addressing of poor management all the way up won't be fixed, so nothing will change.

For RM parcels, assign a decent safe place, or state to collect from depot or neighbour.
 
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