City's postal delays revealed on MP's heat map

An interactive heat map showing the worst postal delays in Worcester has been created by an MP after finding the problem "infuriating".

Tom Collins said he had decided to launch the map in a bid to push Royal Mail to take action, after being contacted by residents across the city about post turning up late.

"It's been a real issue for a long time - people are incredibly frustrated," he said.

A spokesperson for Royal Mail (RM) said post continued to be delivered in the city "every day", but accepted some routes could be affected by "short-term issues".

Collins said he intended to keep the map updated so people could see how irregular deliveries were on a monthly rolling basis, using individual postcodes to add data to the map.

It comes after he held talks with RM in a meeting in July, in which he said he "struggled to get them to acknowledge" the issue.

He told the BBC he set up the map so "Royal Mail's failures are visible and clear".

"A lot of people have been contacting me over a long period of time now, going back to last autumn," he said.

"I get a lot of constituents contact me about delays as long as three weeks - delays late enough where people are missing appointments at hospital, finding out about parking fines too late, and getting other late post that has a real impact on their lives.

"I found it surprisingly hard for Royal Mail to really accept there was a problem, so I wanted to make this issue really visible. A lot of people are incredibly frustrated."

Collins, a Labour MP in the city, said he was due to have a follow-up meeting with RM to revisit the problems.

Other politicians in Worcestershire said they were collating similar data - Lib Dem Councillor Dan Boatright-Greene said he had contacted RM about 27 postcode areas in and around Pershore where residents had complained about a lack of post.

It included someone waiting 17 weeks for a bank card, and another resident who had NHS letters arrive days after an appointment.

An RM spokesperson said they believed the service was improving and is "on track" against its targets, with only 1% of post taking more than a week to arrive.

"We know how important it is for letters to arrive when expected," they said.

"Mail continues to be delivered across Worcester every day.

"However individual routes can occasionally be affected by short-term local issues, and where this happens time-sensitive items such as first class mail and medical letters are delivered daily.

"Any remaining mail is delivered the next day."

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