A bid to improve postal deliveries means some people are now getting their mail more than an hour late.

Royal Mail says new delivery times are being introduced in the run-up to a shake-up, which will see second deliveries cut altogether.

They claim it will improve services.

But staff at one Feering-based firm were shocked when their postman told them mail would now arrive up to an one-and-a-half hours later.

Insurance company Shield Policies, in Little Tey Road, could get its post as late as 11am.

Spokesman Graham Argyle said: "It means that anything urgent can't be dealt with until lunchtime, which is effectively a 24-hour delay."

Royal Mail spokesman James Taylor says services are going through organisational and structural changes before the introduction of "single daily deliveries".

Staff will spend longer sorting post, so it is all delivered on the same day but that could be much later than at present.

Published Wednesday January 21, 2004

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