Royal Mail are 'desperately' trying to get staff back to work

Royal Mail says it is already dealing with a backlog of four million items of post due to the unofficial action.

And it says until staff return to work it cannot start the deliveries.

Traders are being forced to travel outside of the area to post their mail or use alternative services.

Michael Reid, executive officer of the Oxfordshire Chamber of Commerce, said it was deeply concerned by the latest strike and the effects it was having on its members.

"Many of our members are having to increase their costs simply to get mail delivered to them or to deliver it to where they wish it to go.

"Others haven't been paid or haven't received payments over the bank holiday weekend.

"The cost to local businesses is around half a million to a million pounds, it really is a huge amount.

"The mail service is crucial to business and our members want to ensure it is back up and running as soon as possible."

It will hit the reputation of the post, people are fed up with them David Hicks, Really Good Card Company

He warned sympathy for the postal workers was not obvious among his members and said many might look for alternative ways of getting their post delivered in the future.

David Hicks, managing director of the Really Good Card Company in Abingdon, said few orders had reached him since the beginning of the strike on 30 March.

"We also get all our cheques through the post, and they are getting stuck.

"We are taking steps for the future to send orders electronically, we are trying to encourage people to send money that way too.

"It will hit the reputation of the post, people are fed up with them."

However at Oxford University staff say disruption has been kept to a minimum by using the internet.

"Our main application time is October and we always take account of postal strikes so people are not turned down because their application is late," a spokeswoman said.

"The mail is a little bit slow so we have been sending urgent things by e-mail or Fed Ex."

No increased risk

Royal Mail said it was only those people posting things in the OX postcode area who were experiencing problems.

A spokeswoman said: "There is a backlog of four million items but we handle 83 million items a day across the country so we estimate it will only take a matter of days to clear.

"We have been shipping mail out to our other 72 mail centres across the country."

She said about 300 workers remained on strike at the mail centre in Cowley with only 30% still at work.

At the Headington delivery office 50% of workers are on strike along with 80 staff from Royal Mail House, leaving a 20% work force there.

The spokeswoman assured the public the delayed mail was being kept safe at a secure location in Oxfordshire.

"There is no increased risk of anything getting lost and as soon as the workers come back to work everything will be processed as quickly as possible," she said.