POSTAL SERVICES in Dundee are the worst in mainland Scotland, according to figures released by Royal Mail yesterday.

First-class deliveries in the DD postcode area are the sixth-worst in Britain, with rural areas such as the Borders and Dumfries and Galloway well ahead.

Over the past nine months, only 78.5% of Dundee’s first-class post reached its destination by the next working day, despite a nationwide annual target of 93%.

Deliveries in Kirkcaldy and Perth were also lower than the national average, at 81.7% and 82.4% respectively.

The director of mail watchdog postwatch, Tricia Dow, said it was disappointing to see Dundee at the bottom of the list.

She said, “It’s the customers who must be the most disappointed—and it’s not the place Royal Mail workers in Dundee want to be either.

“It looks like they will fail to meet their targets by the end of the year, and it’s only next year that the figures are likely to get better.

“But, regardless of these figures, Dundee is badly placed in the table.”

A spokesperson for Royal Mail said the area has been particularly badly hit by official and unofficial strikes by postmen and women in the last nine months.

She said that, as well as strikes in Dundee, action at a mail processing centre in Edinburgh affected the onward flow of post to Dundee, Perth and Kirkcaldy, which had a “knock-on effect.”

A 2007 postwatch study found more than half of addresses surveyed in the DD4 area east of the city had complaints about service.