‘Bermuda triangle’ where we can wait FIVE weeks for post
A DAILY postal service is a distant dream for residents of a forgotten ‘Bermuda triangle’ town who say they have to wait as long as five weeks between letter deliveries.
One cancer sufferer nearly missed vital check-ups after his post stopped arriving, with a staggering 41 letters dropping on his mat when the postman finally visited.
Meanwhile a widow in her eighties was left with a broken letterbox after several weeks’ worth of post was shoved through at once.
Long-suffering residents of the Lancashire town of Skelmersdale are in despair over the apparently intractable mystery of what has happened to their once-reliable postmen and women, with around 6,000 addresses not receiving daily deliveries.
‘We had nothing for four weeks, then finally 41 letters came bursting through the front door,’ said Bryan Wareing, 87, a retired trading standards officer being treated for cancer. ‘I know Royal Mail are struggling to deliver the post six days a week, but we’d settle for getting it once a week.’
Neighbour David Jones, 75, and his wife Dorothy, 76, have gone as long as five weeks without mail. ‘I had to go down to the local sorting office and they handed me 15 letters and an Amazon parcel,’ Mr Jones explained.
Widow Celia Fairhurst, 84, a former nurse, often waits two weeks or more for deliveries. ‘When the postman finally turned up he stuffed 14 letters and two magazines through the letterbox, breaking it,’ she said.
Last year residents had to queue in freezing conditions outside the local depot. Royal Mail blamed staff on sick leave, vowing no address would be missed two days running.
Ashley Dalton, Labour MP for West Lancashire, has met local managers in Skelmersdale and neighbouring Ormskirk to demand improvements. She said they had pledged daily deliveries for 85 per cent of residents – but that leaves around 6,000 households in Skelmersdale alone missing out each day. ‘It has been clear there are still areas where mail is not delivered this quickly,’ she said.
A Royal Mail spokesman said ‘unique circumstances’ had hit Skelmersdale, but insisted matters were ‘improving’, adding: ‘As of last week more than 90 per cent of mail was delivered on time.’