A lightning strike by 200 postal workers led to major delays to mail deliveries across a large part of Essex today (Friday).

Workers at the South East Anglia Mail office, Chelmsford, walked out at 7pm on Thursday night in a dispute over how overtime is allocated.

Emergency talks were held between Royal Mail managers and union officials, and staff returned to work at about 1am.

The strike hit all addresses carrying a Chelmsford CM or Colchester CO postcode. Towns affected included Braintree, Witham and Maldon.

Royal Mail bosses stressed that as much mail as possible would be delivered, although it was possible some homes would not receive any mail at all.

Royal Mail spokeswoman Valerie Goodchild said the strike action had not been planned and that agreements about overtime were set to be drawn up.

"We had had talks on Tuesday and we were just waiting for the agreement to be typed up and signed. But the workers walked out before we could get that done."

Mrs Goodchild said that workers had been upset about earlier incidents when, because there were not enough volunteers to work overtime shifts, they had been forced to use temporary staff.

She said the problem had been sorted out and workers had returned to sorting post early today. She said everything was being done to ensure that the delivery of letters and parcels returned to normal as soon as possible.

Mrs Goodchild added: "We apologise to customers who will be inconvenienced by this."

The Communication Workers Union, which represents postal workers, said it did not condone unofficial strike action.

"They have resolved the immediate problem and are all back at work, but any long-term solutions will be worked out between the union and Royal Mail," said a union spokesman.

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