UK Watchdog campaign to highlight missing letters errors

Beleaguered Royal Mail has come under fire again after the postal service watchdog has revealed that nearly nine million letters are sent to the wrong address each year.

Postwatch launches a campaign today to stop the delivery bungles by encouraging people to complain whenever they receive something in error.

The organisation is sending out packs containing "Stamp Out Misdelivered Mail" stickers and a diary for recording wrongly-posted letters.

The move comes hot on the heels of a TV documentary last week which exposed shocking practices by mail handlers. Undercover journalists for Channel 4's Dispatches programme revealed postmen throwing bags of mail under hedges, stealing and selling on credit cards, and letters being shredded by faulty machinery.

The latest findings could be the final straw for many Yorkshire businesses and residents who have complained bitterly about the new single delivery system which has led to post arriving hours later than before.

Postwatch revealed that nearly 60 per cent of the 14.5m letters lost a year ago go the wrong house.

More than half of UK addresses said they had received misdelivered mail in the last six months, with five per cent of those admitting they put mail for another house in the wastebin.

Others could take up to a week to post the letters back to the sender, or deliver it by hand.

The Postwatch research of more than 2,000 UK households also found that half of the population did not consider complaining to Royal Mail about wrong deliveries because they felt it was not important enough.

However, more than 2,000 complaints have been received by the watchdog about them since April, 2003.

People have complained of serious problems including missed hospital appointments and job interviews.

Postwatch aims to persuade people that complaining to Royal Mail will help managers to tighten up procedures.

Chairman of Postwatch Northern England Judith Donovan said: "It may not seem that important to you if you get someone else's mail. Most people say to themselves 'well it's a small mistake and it only takes five minutes to pop it through the right letterbox or put it back in the post box.'

"But thousands of letters every month are accidentally put through the wrong letterbox and are never passed on to the correct address and that letter in your home could mean a great deal to the person it is addressed to.

"Our message to customers is that if Royal Mail do not know about the problem, they cannot fix it. Let them know."

Yorkshire businesses and residents have told the Yorkshire Post their confidence in the postal system and morale among their postmen and women are at an all-time low.

Firms have been infuriated by the arrival of mail as late as lunchtime since the single delivery system was introduced.

The once-a-day service, brought in last year to save costs, is now in place at all but about 10 sorting offices in the region.

Harrogate and Knaresborough's Conservative Parliamentary spokeswoman, Maggie Punyer, is due to meet post managers this week to tackle the problem.

She said: "Locally we've given the Royal Mail long enough to get the new service arrangements bedded in. Tempers are now running high because you can never get through to the sorting office on the phone, it just rings and rings."

Hull and Humber Chamber of Commerce said several members had complained of the same problems but it was prepared to wait another two to three weeks for the system to settle down.

But Royal Mail spokeswoman Wendy Martin asked for patience.

She said: "We are asking people to bear with us and wait till it settles down. We aim to have completed all deliveries by 1pm-ish."

The state-owned organisation said it supported Postwatch's campaign to stop misdelivery but it disputed the figures. It said 280,000 letters a week went missing, representing 0.07 per cent of the 420m posted.