Royal Mail warning as online retailers suspend Scottish services
Royal Mail has played down the possibility of more disruption to postal services but is urging the public to post letters and cards as soon as possible.
- By Aileen Robertson
- Published in the Courier : 14.12.10
- Published online : 14.12.10 @ 10.45am
With Christmas fast approaching and the forecast for more wintry weather this week, the company said it had invested £20 million in ensuring cards and gifts arrived in time.
The news came on the day it emerged that supermarkets have had to stop taking some home delivery orders from customers in Scotland because of the cold snap.
Tesco, Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer and Asda have all been affected.
Tesco Direct said they had stopped taking orders from customers in Scotland.
A spokesman said, "We don't want to cause disappointment to customers and have taken the decision to suspend new Tesco Direct orders in Scotland. We are working hard to ensure that orders already placed with us are delivered."
Deliveries suspended
Asda Direct warned it was unable to deliver large items, such as furniture, before Christmas, and said it had stopped taking orders for in-store collection.
A Sainsbury's spokesman said, "Despite our best efforts, the adverse weather conditions mean we have had to suspend our non-food deliveries in Scotland. We would like to apologise to our customers for any inconvenience this has caused."
Marks & Spencer said it was not accepting orders for "delivery-to-home" for Scottish postcodes as it could not guarantee a delivery date.
A spokesman said, "Due to the recent bad weather, we've had to make some changes to our deliveries to Scotland for online orders. We are still accepting orders for delivery-to-store for collection, which is free of charge, and at this time we are confident that all previously placed delivery-to-home orders will be delivered pre-Christmas.
"However, we are currently not accepting orders for delivery-to-home for Scottish postcodes as we can't guarantee a delivery date. It is very unfortunate that we've had to make this decision but we don't want to disappoint any customers."
All three stores say food orders are unaffected.
Difficulty
A spokeswoman for boots.com said, "We can confirm that our carriers have experienced difficulty delivering to all areas of Scotland due to the recent snowfall, and as they work through the backlog of orders, we have taken the decision to temporarily suspend our home delivery service for new orders in Scotland. As soon as conditions improve, the service will be available again.
"In the meantime, our 'buy online, collect in store' service is still available in Scotland, allowing customers to order online and arrange delivery to a store of their choice throughout Scotland."
Couriers including Parcel Force and Home Delivery Network have also been affected. The online shopping sites Amazon and Firebox are suffering similar problems, with Firebox saying next-day delivery was not guaranteed.
As far as Royal Mail goes, extra resources are being concentrated in Scotland, the north-east of England and the Midlands, which were hardest hit by the big freeze.
An additional 3000 temporary staff have been taken on, on top of the 20,000 brought in to handle the increased workload at this time of year.
As the postal service deals with a backlog of deliveries following the Arctic weather, an extra 250 lorries — and 500 HGV drivers — have been employed to bolster the existing fleet. Staff have been working longer hours and additional operational centres have been opened up during the Christmas rush.
'Pulling out all the stops'
A Royal Mail spokeswoman said, "We are pulling out all the stops to get the mail delivered to our customers throughout the UK. We already had a range of measures in place to help us deliver as quickly as possible. These extra measures announced today will significantly help with this."
When asked to comment on how large the backlog of mail was, she added, "The volume of mail we have in our system changes constantly and changes every hour. It is a fluid situation as addresses most severely affected become accessible to us again."
Royal Mail managing director Mark Higson said posting early was vital to avoid disappointment.
"The worst December weather the UK has seen in almost 30 years has had an impact on our services to some parts of the country. With this additional £20 million investment, we are committed to ensuring we deliver letters and packets as quickly as possible.
"Our people are doing a great job in very challenging conditions. I would like to thank them for their tremendous efforts to ensure we continue to deliver right up until Christmas Eve."
Monday was expected to be the Royal Mail's busiest day over the festive period, with staff processing an estimated 130 million cards, letters and online purchases. The last posting dates for Christmas are Wednesday for standard parcels, Saturday for second-class items and December 21 for first class mail and packets. Those posting by special delivery can leave it to the last minute and post on December 23.
Meanwhile, the country's main supermarkets have also been badly hit after last week's wintry weather brought the transport network to a halt.
12.22pm - 14.12.2010 billwestwood - methil, scotland Report This
you would think we lived in the arctic the way these so called companies treat people in scotland its typical english histeria seeing that most of the east of england have their fair share of the bad weather but they dont suspend deliveries to these areas
03.33pm - 14.12.2010 Lindsay Houstoun - Austin, USA Report This
Amazon.co.uk has delivered 3 separate orders for me to a small town in Scotland with no problems at all, all within the quoted time scales!! All in this past week!! And Yet I tried to order something from Mark's and Spencers and couldn't order<br />So, what is the Problem?
08.24am - 15.12.2010 Alex Ogilvie - Stavanger, Norway Report This
I think they have all been inundated with orders this year probably due to the weather conditions and are using the weather as an excuse as they cannot keep up and deliver. <br /> Things don't shutdown in Norway because it snows.
10.16am - 15.12.2010 Joe - Perth, Scotland Report This
I work for one of the major UK parcel companies and, although the last two weeks have been very difficult, we have now cleared the backlog and are delivering as normal throughout Scotland. Our competitors? Try and keep up lads!
07.10pm - 17.12.2010 charles burley - cumnock, uk Report This
i do not understand some english companies who charge a surcharge to deliver to scotland i live in ayrshire & to get a 15 kg bag of dog food delivered they wanted an exstra £10 because i lived in in scotland this must be at least be discrimination & raisem i thought were one country
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