Predicament

[Viggenmort]

Good afternoon folks.

Looking for some advice from within on the following:

We've been waiting for post ahead of both Christmas and Birthdays and have not even had a basic letter through the door for days. Phoned the sorting office earlier to be told that there was a pile of post sitting there for us. Apparently the postlady put a note on one saying "the drive looked slippery" so they had been taken back and left at the office and with new post being added each day and just left to mount up.

The guy said they had new directives and guidelines over slippery drives and other dangerous situations. I can understand the initiative to a point as i used to work in retail and we had all manner of little H&S regs come through which would basically tie our hands on pretty much everything including serving customers. That said i also witnessed alot of people who took a rather extreme view of them to get out of doing things. I'm not labelling my post as one of those instances, but i can imagine someone on a tight schedule seeing this as a loophole to ease some pressure.

We have a slabstone driveway. My father walks with a stick and i have an elderly grandmother who visits weekly, not to mention the season usually bringing an influx of post. With that in mind combined with the expectation of frost and ice (and despite my own health issues), i spent 3 long days outside several weeks back scrubbing the drive to remove moss and dirt. On one occasion whilst i was out there one of the posties said "i wish everyone would clean their drive, some of them are ****** dangerous".

So, what do we do?
If a postperson believes they have identified a risk, which they avoid. How are we supposed to know there is a pile of post sitting around for days at a sorting office?

Again as in the past i realise a posties life is not always a contented one and all jobs have their issues. Got a couple of mates in the postal service and they tell me lots of good and bad stories, but thats the same with all jobs.

The guy at the sorting office said they were closed but he'd hang around so we could get them, which was good of him. Thankfully my mother has had a day off work so was able to drive up there, any other time however and we would have been stuck. The guy couldn't give us any suggestions on what to do though.

Basically as above im politely looking for advice on what can be done.

Many Thanks in advance

[DGP1]

If your driveway has been flagged up as dangerous then the manager of the office would make a visit to determine if it is dangerous, it's up to him/her to make a judgement and then make appropriate action, which would be either resuming deliveries or personally delivering a letter telling you that your deliveries have been suspended and what to do to ensure resumption of them.

If you've cleaned your driveway and it seems safe then you should contact the manager of the DO and ask for your deliveries to be resumed.

Failing that you can always contact RM on Twitter and ask them to help. @RoyalMail

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Best Advice is too write to the Delivery Office Manager and state what you have been advised and what steps you have taken to address the situation. He, or one of his staff should then make a visit to do a risk assessment.

I am surprised though that you have not received a letter of explanation. Of course a manager delivering 1 letter without a bag of other mail on their shoulder faces less risk than a fully loaded postie.

To be fair I have alerted customers and managers to "risky situations" and all have them have been addressed very quickly, but communication between all parties is the key.

[Viggenmort]

Thanks for the advice.
Our usual postie delivers come rain or shine. Last time we 'did' get post it was howling with wind and pouring with rain and he knocked on the door and gave me the post. Maybe with Christmas approaching they have drafted in temps and we've got one this week who has decided against delivering when it rains ;)

Where you said about being flagged though. The guy at the office didnt say anything about being flagged, just that one of the bits of post had slippery drive marked on it. Doesn't seem to be anything official. The cleaning of the drive was not done in response to any external complaints. It was something i did as a preventative.

Will see what happens over the next few days and whether we need to call the SO again.
Hopefully its a blip and we can get back to normal.
If it continues i'll contact the manager

[Viggenmort]

Just as a quick update.
We've had a real mix of snow, sleet, wind and rain today.
Our usual postman delivered a bunch of letters/packs this morning and we even got a larger parcel in the evening.

Hopefully it was just a temp helping cover a busy round and we're back to normal.

Thanks again to those who replied with advice

[Viggenmort]

Update.
So the postie delivered a couple of bits as normal last Friday morning and we got a larger parcel by van in the evening from RM. Hoped we were back to normal.
We've had no post whatsoever since then.

I've currently got 12 parcels somewhere in the ether, from 10 different senders. These are a mix of xmas/birthday gifts and my own stuff. The birthdays are fri, sat and sun. 7 of the Parcels were sent between the 5th-8th by a mix of 1st and 2nd class post. On the 9th 3 friends sent me xmas cards and and i was also sent very important docs all via 1st class letter post.
I am not the only one in the household and other members are also awaiting various parcels. One posted 1st class on the 2nd!

I have stayed in for the past 2wks and seen the postie go past, delivering to both neighbours. Despite this as per the original post, last week we found a stack of post sat at the depot by a chance phonecall enquiring about lack of post. So, we've phoned again this week as even outside of xmas period its unusual to go more than 2days without even a letter. The guy at the depot said if we hadnt got a card they would have no post for us. We explained that this was not always the case based on last week's experience, so he went to check. Apparently there is nothing there.

If it were the odd bit of post here and there or even (as its busy time of year) 2 in the same day, I'd acknowledge these things happen, but 10 completely different senders on the parcels, 4 on the letters and that's just my post not the rest of the household. Its all a little odd that last week they were held at the depot with no communication to us and that this week there is nothing even there.
We have no knowledge of any stops based on discussion with them and that would seem to be confirmed by the fact that we did get post last Friday in the middle of the 2 absences.

So, if last week's was down to a relief postie or whoever not wanting to deliver. Is this week's continuation going to be someone at depot not checking properly (though hard to imagine you wouldn't see the stack we are missing) or is it being lost before it gets to the depot, which again is odd as its coming from all over the country with the only common theme being our delivery address.

This weekend is the only time we'll get members of family together, so gifts were to be exchanged then. Not overly optimistic at present :(

I'm going to try Royal Mail's twitter in a moment based on suggestions, but is there anything else i can try?

[mazza111]

Sounds like they have flagged it up now, so any postman going to the duty will see a card stating a risk of slipping at your address. Can you pop to the DO and see if there's any mail/packets for you just so you may get the parcels for xmas? I know it's not ideal, but might save the event at the weekend for you until you can get this matter cleared up

[Viggenmort]

Sounds like they have flagged it up now, so any postman going to the duty will see a card stating a risk of slipping at your address. Can you pop to the DO and see if there's any mail/packets for you just so you may get the parcels for xmas? I know it's not ideal, but might save the event at the weekend for you until you can get this matter cleared up

Hi there, thanks for reply, but as stated in my post; there is nothing flagged up .... and we've already checked at the depot.
I have contacted RM today and my address has been checked. Everything is in order, there are no problems with the round and there are no items waiting at the depot.

Again i realise that its a busy time of year etc. but I'm really at a loss. For so many items to be 'missing somewhere' coming from so many different locations around the country its just way too much of a coincidence. I really hope there is a logical and innocent explanation but the longer it goes the more upsetting it becomes.
I'm just hoping that the postie delivers a miraculous backlog tomorrow.

Thanks again to those who have replied and also the suggestion of twitter, as (though i have no resolve) the response was fast and polite.

Best Regards

[Viggenmort]

*EDIT*

Office manager has just delivered us a large sack of post.
He said they'd had a complaint about our driveway and that lot had been sat at the depot. Said it would be best until resolved if we phoned depot and picked up for now. So ... where we have been phoning both the depot and customer services to be told there was no problem/block on our address and nothing for us at the depot, was a complete and total lie.

Very disappointed with that, but at least we now have post

Again thanks to all who replied with advice

[TeeferTiger]

I'm glad it's finally appeared!