CHANGES to postal delivery times in Trowbridge have been met with opposition from some residents.

As part of a national restructuring process, the two daily deliveries in the county town are being phased into one.

Instead of receiving the first delivery by 10am and one later that morning, residents are now getting one delivery, arriving around midday.

Royal Mail says the new system is vital to cut costs as the previous second post comprised 20 per cent of its budget for just three per cent of the mailbag. Although bosses admit the changes will cause teething problems they say it will work well in the long run.

But residents like Stuart McLellan, who runs his own business from his home in Holbrook Road say the new single delivery is wreaking havoc.

He said his business is suffering as a result and that postal workers are also complaining about the system.

He said: "I relied on the previous service, but even at midday my post has not arrived.

"It's just atrocious. I've never known post to be delivered to me later than 10am."

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "We do get a certain amount of disruption with the changes but it does settle down. It is going through a transitional period."

The problems in Trowbridge come as industry regulator Postwatch has again found that deliveries in the Bath postcode area, BA, have failed to meet their targets. Latest figures show that the zone, which covers most of west Wiltshire, came one per cent below the minimum set target.

The Government has stipulated that no postcode area should see below 90.5 percent of mail delivered on time. But in west Wiltshire, the figures for the third quarter of 2003 show on-time deliveries fell to 89.6 percent the lowest in the south west.

There was some solace for the BA area in that it met its target for local deliveries, but Postwatch regional manager Gary Hepburn said the Royal Mail was continuing to fail.

He said: "Customers want a consistent good standard of service from their postal operator. It is disappointing to see that Royal Mail is still struggling to deliver this.

"If performance continues at this level across the region, and this is mirrored in other areas of the country, there is no doubt that Royal Mail will struggle to meet its nationally performance targets. It is likely to face hefty fines again at the end of the year.

"Customers tell us every day, they want the service they are paying for not compensation for failure."