REGARDING the letter from Peter Thorpe on new postal services (Gazette, April 15). Yes, his post and everybody else's mail is getting to them nearly three hours later than usual.

Those who must be obeyed, bosses at Royal Mail, have cut the hours, made redundancies and added extra rounds to existing staff. Whereas they would leave the sorting office about 7am most days many do not get out before 10am, meaning everyone on their round gets their post three hours later than normal. Devizes has got rid of night sorting, so instead of going to work at 4am and setting up their own rounds all the mail coming in has to be sorted out first.

Postmen/women are up at 3am. They do not just go to the office, pick up a bag and deliver. To get their rounds finished now, most of them would be working well beyond 4pm every day. They should not be forced to work overtime every day to finish their job. For weeks staff at Devizes have been battling with bosses, telling them the new system is not working. Why should they listen to the postmen/women, many doing the job for over 20 years or more?

Things reached breaking point two weeks ago when Devizes staff threatened to walk out unless things improved. Within half an hour, managers from Swindon and agency staff were sent over to help, agency staff being paid more.

Royal Mail bosses have now admitted things are not working at Devizes and are trying to resolve the problems.

After all, let's cut your hours, give you an extra 200 houses each to deliver to and we won't listen to what anyone has to say about it.

The postmen/women are disgusted with the service they are being forced to give. Things are bad at this time of the year. At Christmas, there's no hope in hell unless Royal Mail back down and listen to their workers.

Employing 20-year-olds as managers who have never delivered a letter in their life, who think they know it all, won't work.

They should get out and meet the general public, who rightly so have every reason to complain.

Postmen and women are on your side, try to support them. Your local postie is doing his best but is fighting a losing battle with fat cat bosses.

Only town rounds had a second delivery. Rurals only ever had one. Some are lucky to get one delivery a day now. It's about time the general public knew the truth.

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