People in Watford and Kings Langley have not been getting their post on time because of a chronic shortage of staff at the Royal Mail’s local sorting office.

One worker at the Caxton Way branch, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed some routes had not been completed for days because of high levels of sick absence and low morale among remaining workers.

“Sick levels at the moment in the Royal Mail are at an epidemic level. Postmen are dropping like flies,” they said.

“Walks can’t be covered so they’re getting emergency staff in but they’re coming in, seeing the workload and just turning round. This has been going on for months but it’s getting worse. Some walks have not been out for four days.”

It was also claimed that although several part-time staff were due to start this week to cover for the absentees, no team leaders had been appointed to train them and that postmen were expected to do this on the job for no extra pay.

“New recruits are being assigned to postmen to train them for free. They’re not prepared to do that,” added the unnamed source.

“It’s gotten much worse since they privatised it and it’s going to keep getting worse. The feeling is there’s going to be an overwhelming yes in favour of strike action.”

Similar problems were reported at the same sorting office in August. 

Royal Mail spokesperson Sally Hopkins apologised for the recent delivery delays, explaining this was down to “very high sick absence levels in the office”.

“We have contingency measures in place, including drafting in extra resources from other offices, and many of those currently off sick are due back very soon,” she added.  

“We are also recruiting some new staff to join the team within the next three or four weeks. Royal Mail has a robust training programme in place to support new starters in all our offices.

“We would like to apologise to customers in parts of Watford and the surrounding area who may not recently have received the first class service we aim to provide to all our customers.”