December 15, 2011 10.14 am This story is over 146 months old

Frustrated queues at Royal Mail sorting office

Long queues: Residents are increasingly frustrated at the lack of organisation at the local parcel sorting office.

Lincoln residents have been airing their complaints about long queues waiting for their parcels at the Royal Mail sorting office on Firth Road.

The Christmas period is Royal Mail’s busiest time of year due to an onslaught of people buying gifts online for Christmas and sending festive cards.

Therefore, the delivery company has been increasing its opening hours at sorting offices, as well as extra postmen and women.

Items dated up to December 6 are currently out for redelivery in Lincoln and the sorting office queue gives priority to customers with notice left cards.

Royal Mail’s Managing Director for Fulfilment and Parcels Nick Landon said: “Online shopping continues to grow and people are buying their Christmas presents earlier to take some of the stress out of their Christmas shopping or to spread the cost.

“Christmas is our busiest time of year and we expect to handle a festive mailbag of around two billion items this year.

“Royal Mail has invested an additional £15 million to increase our scale and improve our flexibility during this important time of year for our customers.”

However, many Lincoln residents have taken to Twitter to complain about the extended waiting times of collecting a parcels, with some waiting well over an hour for collection.

One frustrated resident said he queued for an hour and a half on December 14 to pick up a parcel due to not only being stood amongst 60 people waiting, but the office not having any extra staff on to move the queue on.

He said: “They’ve clearly not taken any extra staff on. [I] got to the desk and there were two women working their socks off. Not fair on them.”

“As we do every year we’re asking people to help our postmen and women deliver this year’s bumper post bag by buying their gifts online as soon as they can, and to post their cards before latest recommended posting dates,” said Landon.

The Royal Mail have posted the last dates for sending parcels on their website, as well as extra opening hours for the busiest sorting offices.

December 14 was the final day for standard inland parcels to be posted. The last date a parcel can be sent off to get to its recipient (UK only) is December 23, by Special Delivery with Saturday Guarantee.

International mail is no longer guaranteed to get delivered before Christmas.