MPs urged to investigate mysterious postal delays and delivery failures in Milton Keynes

The request has come from Cllr Amanda Marlow, Conservative councillor for Watling Ward, where residents are complaining that their mail is sometimes up to 10 days late.

Cllr Marlow says the postal delivery failures and delays are having real consequences, with reports of missed hospital and GP appointments, delayed benefit and pension correspondence and bills arriving too late to deal with promptly.

People in Crownhill, whose post is handled by the Kiln Farm Delivery Office, and Shenley Church End, served by the Dane Road Delivery Office in Bletchley, have reported going without post for up to ten days before receiving a large backlog of letters all at once, she said.

Residents in Stony Stratford have also reported problems, with some saying post can take up to two weeks to arrive.

Under Royal Mail's Universal Service Obligation, the company is legally required to deliver 90% of first-class mail the next working day and 95% of second-class mail within three working days. Cllr Marlow believes the experiences reported by residents indicate those standards are not being met locally.

She has written to Emily Darlington MP (Milton Keynes Central), Chris Curtis MP (Milton Keynes North) and Callum Anderson MP (Buckingham and Bletchley) urging them to raise the concerns directly with Royal Mail and the Postal Affairs and work to fix the problem.

She said: "When residents go a week or more without receiving any post, this is no longer a minor inconvenience. People rely on the postal service for hospital appointments, financial information and important official correspondence. When those letters don't arrive, the consequences can be serious.”

Cll Marlow also plans to visit the city’s Royal Mail delivery offices to better understand the challenges they are facing.

"If there are genuine operational issues, we need to know what they are... Residents simply want a reliable postal service that delivers on time,” she said.

We recently asked Royal Mail for an explanation for the delays and whether there were plans to improve the local service.

A Royal Mail spokesperson told us: “We know how important reliable deliveries are, particularly when people are waiting for hospital appointments, cards, bills or other important letters.

“All mail, including Second Class letters, is included in our regular delivery plans alongside parcels. Where short-term local issues affect individual routes, our teams work to clear items as quickly as possible, with anything not delivered that day prioritised for delivery the next working day. Customers collecting mail from a Customer Service Point are asked to provide the required proof before items are handed over.”