Residents like Philip Thompson feel as though they are enduring a horseback service – some 400 years later - Julian Simmonds
When Royal Mail was first opened to the public in 1635 by King Charles I, letters were transported on foot or horseback meaning it could take up to a month for them to arrive at their destination.
And while the postal service has since moved beyond horseback deliveries, for the residents of Saltdean, it still feels as though they are enduring a 17th century service – some 400 years later.
On local message boards, residents rely on gallows humour, announcing with “great excitement” of having had post delivered to their house that morning, to the shock and envy of others.
But beneath the wry humour, anger is bubbling at the surface of this pleasant and tight-knit community.
Saltdean, located less than five miles from Brighton, has become ‘postal desert’ - David A Eastley /Alamy Stock Photo
Outside Saltdean post office, 65-year-old local councillor, Mark Earthey, bemoans the slow decline of his village’s postal service. When he and his wife moved to the village 33 years ago, parcels were delivered twice a day.
Slowly he’s seen the service dwindle to once a day, then a few times a week. For the past nine months, he says he’s now lucky if he sees the postman every 10 days.
Matters came to a head last August after his wife passed away and her death certificate never arrived.
“Have you any idea how difficult it is to deal with bereavement when everyone is telling you they have sent the death certificate and you are sitting there and the weeks are going by and nothing has arrived?
“In the end, it took a month to arrive and that wasn’t because Royal Mail delivered it. It was after I went to the sorting office myself and then I saw all my post sitting there in a bundle.”
It took Mark Earthey’s late wife’s death certificate a month to arrive after he found it in the sorting office himself - Julian Simmonds
Earthey adds staff at the sorting office were very apologetic, but there is little they can do. “It’s cuts,” he explains. “I am not having a go at the sorting office. They said they would take my name and put me on a priority list but if they don’t have a postie, they don’t have a postie.”
A Royal Mail spokesman said they “did not recognise” reports of weeks-long delays in Saltdean and denied claims there was a backlog in their sorting office.
But according to the postal service’s own metrics, Brighton is one of the worst-serviced regions of the country, with only 72.2pc of first-class post being delivered on time in the most recent financial quarter.
By comparison, in York, 90pc of first-class post was delivered in time – making it one of the best places in the country to send and receive letters.
For postmistress, Tracy Dean, the crisis has been triggered by a lack of staff.
She has run the Saltdean branch for the past eight years and says staffing shortages along with an increasing number of parcels being sent are putting an untenable strain on letter delivery.
She tells The Telegraph: “It is quite hard because I see the posties out all the time and they are working as hard as they can, but there’s only so much they can do and there are only so many of them.
“They are doing extra hours, doing double shifts or two rounds to try to keep the community happy and receiving its post but since last summer, the complaints have increased.”
Tracy Dean has run the Saltdean branch for eight years – she says staffing shortages are putting an untenable strain on letter delivery - Julian Simmonds
It’s not just death certificates that have got held up in the system. Last Monday, Christine Simmons had a cache of letters pushed through her letterbox, all of which were dated between February 8-10.
Among them was a hospital appointment she missed because it had long since passed by the time the letter arrived.
Philip Thompson, 61, similarly had a wedge of 25 letters unceremoniously pushed through his letterbox at the end of January. His post, which included an updated copy of his will, arrived six weeks late. He said he was “gobsmacked” by how poor Royal Mail’s service was.
On the outskirts of Saltdean, Greg Turnbull ended up having to pay twice as much for his parking fine after he missed the 14-day deadline to pay a discounted rate because it arrived on the fifteenth day.
Murray Hecht, 51, who is a full-time carer for his 85-year-old mother, is in the process of trying to have an interest charge removed from his mother’s store credit card.
The bill arrived almost three weeks late, by the time she opened it, it had accrued four days’ worth of interest. She was mortified, Hecht explains.
“She has never gone into debt in her life. She is housebound and disabled and it’s very important to her that things are paid on the dot.”
Murray Hecht is trying to have an interest charge removed from his mother’s credit card after the bill arrived three weeks late - Julian Simmonds
Others are waiting patiently by their letterboxes for news they are expecting but has still not arrived.
Emma, a full-time carer, has been unable to access an extra £330 in carer’s allowance for the past month because of a form the Department for Work and Pensions has repeatedly sent but has never arrived. It cannot be completed online.
Nova Cookson, 44, is in a similar position. She has lived in Saltdean for almost eight years, and is stuck waiting for a letter from her mortgage provider as to whether she and her partner will be able to renew their mortgage.
She says: “The mortgage lender only offers decisions via a hard copy, so it’s pretty nerve wracking having to wait for the letter knowing that we may not actually get it for weeks.”
Britons send a third of the letters today than we did 20 years ago. And for some, the post may seem like an obtuse method of contact in the digital age.
But everywhere you look in Saltdean, you see examples of how reliant we still are as a society on the Royal Mail and what a world where it fails to properly function looks like.
Four miles away in Kemptown, the anger has reached the local MP, Chris Ward, a rising star of the Labour Party.
Sitting in his constituency office, he points to Saltdean on a map with his ballpoint pen and calls it a “postal desert”. “It’s been a constant thing we’ve picked up from constituents but it’s definitely got worse in the past six months,” he says.
“Royal Mail has a legal obligation to deliver six days a week, it’s failing massively in that, particularly in communities like this and it’s having a real impact.
“This is materially impacting people’s lives physically and financially, whether that’s fines or missing appointments. A village that is only a 10-minute drive away from a major city centre should not be so hard to reach.”
Ward recently wrote to Royal Mail about the issue and intends to next raise the issue in parliament. He also plans to speak to Post Office minister, Gareth Thomas, to try and find a solution.
The reality though is he is unlikely to be the only MP knocking on the minister’s door to raise concerns about Royal Mail’s performance.
In 2023-24, the postal service failed to hit its target for next-day delivery of first-class post in every single area of Britain, according to figures published by its parent company.
So far, this year it has racked up 697,015 complaints from frustrated members of the public and paid out almost £6m in compensation because of its ailing performance.
A spokesman for Royal Mail said: “The vast majority of homes in Saltdean are currently receiving their deliveries six days a week as normal.
“We acknowledge there are a number of residents who have experienced a delay and for that we apologise. In these instances, we always prioritise their routes, aiming to complete their delivery the following day.
“We are working hard to further improve service and encourage any resident who has specific concerns to contact us so we can investigate.”
