I WRITE in response to your anonymous correspondent (Gazette, April 22) regarding the changes being made to Royal Mail deliveries in your area.

While we are aware of some of the issues that have been raised, I think the letter did not tell the whole story and I would appreciate the opportunity to explain exactly what is being done and why.

Historically Royal Mail has made two deliveries in urban areas a main first delivery which carries the bulk of customers' letters and a second 'sweep up' delivery which generally carries mail that had not arrived at the delivery office before the first post went out.

As sorting technology and transport infrastructure have improved, the amount of mail going out on second delivery has decreased to around three per cent of the total amount of mail. However, the cost of delivering this mail now equates to 20 per cent of our delivery costs. With competition for postal services increasing more than 50 per cent of our products are now open to competition and following losses within Royal Mail Group in 2001/02 of almost £0.5billion, the imbalance of costs is not something we can sweep under the carpet.

Now we are starting mail deliveries around an hour and a half later in the day. That gives the later mail time to arrive at the delivery office, eliminating the need for a second delivery. We believe that this, along with other changes at delivery office level, will help us save more than £350m.

These savings are being ploughed back into improving the basic pay of posties ensuring staff in areas that have implemented the changes successfully have a basic pay of £300 per week. We have also reduced the basic working week from six to five days and have introduced a 'job and finish' scheme which allows postmen and women to go straight home after completing their deliveries.

These changes are huge the biggest delivery offices have seen in a long time and may take some time to settle as our posties get used to the different rounds and ways of working. However as the changes were endorsed by the Communication Workers' Union we are confident staff will be able to adapt to change and enjoy its benefits. Indeed, customers should be seeing improvements being made.

However, if customers continue to experience problems, I would urge them to let us know via our helpline (08457) 740740, so we are able to pinpoint where problems are occurring.

DAN PANES

External relations manager

Royal Mail

Lionel Street

Birmingham