The letter below was sent by First Class postage at noon Wednesday – posted via the Windmill Drive pillar box – to the chief executive of the Royal Mail at the organisation's HQ in London.
That the letter should have arrived in London yesterday, Thursday. As an efficient office should acknowledge receipt and post a response that day, we are expecting a reply today, Friday morning. We will, as they say, keep you posted.
Fans of the Victorian author Anthony Trollope, himself an influential figure in Post Office history – he reorganised rural mail delivery in England and invented the red pillar box – will be aware that with coaches and horses, steam trains and quill and ink, such a timely response would have been achieved in the 1850s. We wonder how 2011 will measure up!
“12th January 2011
Dear Moya Greene
I am writing to you as Chief Executive of the Royal Mail because of the great concern in the CW postal district about the extraordinarily poor service in recent months with letters taking as long as thirty days to be delivered.
I enclose two articles that have been published on Audlem Online in the past two days. They have attracted numerous contributions to our Chatbox with tales of Christmas cards posted locally still arriving and, more critically, hospital appointment letters not being delivered in good time by your organisation.
The breakdown appears to date from the closure of the nearby Crewe Sorting Office and I understand that local MPs Edward Timpson and Stephen O'Brien have been raising this issue in the media and with Royal Mail itself. The media coverage locally about your organisation, it has to be said, has been devastating to your reputation.
I would be grateful if:
1. You could acknowledge receipt of this letter by post as we will be publishing how long it took for a first class letter to reach you in London and a response from your office to reach Audlem Online.
2. You could let Audlem Online know why the service is so appalling at present and why your spokesman misled the local media when, after it was announced that the CW area was the 120th worst in England, Scotland and Wales out of 121 areas, he claimed the teething problems at the Warrington Sorting Office had been 'sorted'.
Your response to both points will be published in full the day they are received in the post.
You must be in serious danger of losing major contracts with companies like Amazon who are having to refund customers locally who have paid for priority postage.
A postal service fit for purpose is clearly vital to local businesses as well as the many individuals who are being let down at present. The failures of the Warrington Sorting Office are also unfair on our splendid local Post Office in Audlem and the postal staff who deliver locally and performed heroically during the recent bad weather. They, however, can only deliver the mail that gets through from the sorting office.
I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely
Editor Audlem Online – officially 'The Best Website in Cheshire'”
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