RESIDENTS in Colchester have been hit by a poor mail service, with many going weeks without a letter or a parcel from the Royal Mail.

According to their official website, Royal Mail deliveries were operating as normal across most of the UK on Tuesday, but there were numerous exceptions listed across eight Colchester postcodes.

Areas from CO1 to CO8 were listed as being temporarily affected, meaning residents in Old Heath, Berechurch, Layer, Lexden, Stanway, Greenstead, Highwoods, and other areas outside Colchester have had little or no coverage from the Royal Mail in recent weeks.

Many people have complained of having missed Mother’s Day cards from relatives due to the poor service.

Other parts of Essex have also been hit by a lack of mail deliveries.

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Braintree, Maldon, and Tendring have also been listed as areas where residents could be experiencing delays.

One Colchester resident, who asked not to be named, lives in the CO2 postcode and explained how there had been a lack of communication from the Royal Mail telling residents about the lack of service in recent weeks.

They said: “I asked other people in the CO2 postcode, and my neighbours are having the same problem.

“I checked the Royal Mail website to see if there had been a reported issue, but there was just this blanket statement saying they were having problems, saying it could be a number of different factors.

“I gave them a call saying we hadn’t received post for two to three weeks – the person I spoke to seemed surprised because normally, even if they are not delivering every day, they would deliver every other day.

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“She said she would escalate it to the manager of the delivery office.”

They added: “It’s one of those regular things you expect and take for granted [but] they’ve given a statement which doesn’t say what the solution or what the problem is.”

When contacted by the Gazette, Royal Mail redirected the press to a statement on its website, which read: "In a small number of local offices, [deliveries] may temporarily not be possible due to local issues such as high levels of sick absence, resourcing, or other local factors.

"In those cases, we will rotate deliveries to minimise the delay to individual customers.

"We also provide targeted support to those offices to address their challenges and restore our service to the high standard our customers would normally receive."