'Endemic' postal delays remain, says councillor

Residents and businesses in Whitchurch have reported they are continuing to face delays in getting post, missing the likes of medical appointments as a result.

The news, from one local councillor, comes after Royal Mail announced plans to invest £500m over five years to improve delivery services in the UK.

"The delays that are happening are still endemic," said councillor Sho Abdul, who represents Whitchurch West on Shropshire Council.

Royal Mail told the BBC it would take five to six months to implement its plans and that delivery targets would be met in a year's time. Figures show it is currently hitting 75% in delivering first class mail on time, when the target is 93%.

"I'm still having residents reach out to me saying that they're missing crucial medical appointments," Abdul added.

He ran an informal survey of people living in the town to establish their experiences of postal delays, and said he had received about 1,000 replies.

"We saw that around 80% of those people had experienced some degree of delay," he said, adding that 40% of that group had post delayed by more than a week, and 20% by more than a month.

As well as Royal Mail's investment, part-time postal workers are to be offered the option to work longer hours in an effort to improve service.

There will also be investment to manage sickness absences and targeted support for the worst-performing delivery offices.

Under these plans, low-priority second class and other non-first class post will be delivered every other weekday instead of daily.

Jenny McHale, who runs florist Gallery Flowers on the high street, said her business had experienced postal delays since 2025.

"It's only really getting back to normal now," she said, adding that "there's a lot of stuff missing in the post, from like HMRC."

It has a knock-on effect on the business, McHale said, as "obviously you want to keep on top of all your paperwork... and it just doesn't [arrive]".

Not all businesses in Whitchurch are experiencing delays, though.

Simon Lyon, from boutique Lorna's House, said his business has "had no problems with [post] at all".

"They come every day to take our parcels away from our online orders," he said, adding: "I can't say that we've had any issues with any letters arriving late."

Meanwhile at record shop The Vinyl Countdown, owner Mark Fulton said the problems seemed to lie more with "domestic post" rather than business mail.

"Sometimes [letters] can come 10 days to two weeks late, which can cause problems with if you're waiting for something from the NHS for example," he said.

Fulton said that he once missed a blood test as he did not receive the letter "until after the actual event".

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