I HAVE just got around to reading last week’s Advertiser and your editorial about the post.

To add some information, about three weeks ago we had no letter delivery in our road from Monday through to Thursday.

On Friday the postman walked past and I enquired what had happened to our subscription copy of Radio Times and a magazine which should have been delivered on the Monday.

He then looked in the bundle he was carrying and said I’ve got it here. He then handed over about eight items, one of which was a first class letter posted the previous Friday. I asked why the late delivery. He replied there had been some problems. I rang the number which the post office said should help in the front page article, which was no help at all. The person I spoke to said they would log a complaint.

For the next two weeks the Radio Times was delivered on a Thursday.

Some days there are no letter deliveries in the road, however, there appear to be parcel deliveries. To me this indicates that locally letter deliveries are abandoned in favour of parcel delivery, the result no doubt of understaffing.

If a postman doesn’t have time to complete his deliveries I believe the mail goes back to the sorting office and is then resorted to make up the deliveries for another day – when the same thing might then happen.

The answer is that there aren’t enough postmen employed in Andover to ensure that mail is speedily delivered.

First class mail is not guaranteed to arrive next day or even the day after.

The Post Office has a monopoly of letter post and doesn’t seem to see the need to provide a good service, just a mediocre one.

Parcels are where it’s all at, so they are dealt with much more speedily.

This has been my experience over the last six-eight months, although it has worsened since just after Christmas.

George Ray, address supplied