Going Postal II
12:49 UK time, Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Ten out of 10 to the Royal Mail. Two weeks after the Magazine launched its postal challenge to test how well the postal service was recovering from the strikes, the experiment is over.
Ten postcards were sent from west London to the four corners of the UK on the day postal workers returned to work after the second 48-hour stoppage.
The last of the 10 cards arrived on Tuesday through the letterbox of Sarah-Michelle Saunders in Caerphilly (pictured above). On average it had travelled 12 miles a day.
"It has arrived! I don't entirely think the delay was the strikes' fault, as our posties have both been off sick. It may be due to that but nevertheless, it's late," she says.
So full marks for not losing any mail, but the experiment has exposed the vagaries of the postal system as illustrated by the map on the right showing the order in which the postcards arrived.
Nick Trevail's postcard arrived in Cornwall the day after it was posted, yet Sarah 200 miles away had to wait another 12 days.
A Royal Mail spokesman said it was difficult to explain but the strike backlog had been reduced from 120 million items to 25 million, which is nearly a third of the number delivered in an average day.
"Items posted now are being delivered as normal. We are taking items from the backlog on a continual basis and we try to do it in order, so the oldest items go first."
