ROYAL MAIL has apologised to dozens of households and businesses in Acomb, York, who missed out on their daily delivery after a postie finished a shift with some letters still in his bag.

About 30 addresses in the Wetherby Road and Beckfield Lane area failed to receive any mail.

Businessman Ken Bell said he knew something was wrong when nothing came through the letter box, as he always gets a few letters each day, containing cheques or bills.

He went out and checked with half-a-dozen neighbours, who had also failed to receive anything.

When he rang Royal Mail to complain, he was told that nobody had been willing to do overtime to get the mail delivered.

"I need the cheques," said Mr Bell, who runs a removals and storage business. "It seems to me we are paying for a first-class service, but aren't getting it." He suggested the best solution would be for Royal Mail to be fully privatised. A Royal Mail spokesman said it apologised to about 30 residents in the Wetherby Road area for failing to deliver the mail last Friday, which he said was the busiest day of the week.

He said the postie involved had finished the shift before completing the delivery of all the mail. Normally, when this happened, the company arranged for someone else to complete the round.

"On this occasion, the problem was brought to management's attention too late for those alternative arrangements to be made." He said such a delivery failure was "very rare."

Paul Clays, of the Union of Communication Workers said he did not know the circumstances of this particular problem. But he said that 99.9 per cent of the time, posties with letters still undelivered at the end of their shift would still deliver them, unless there was a pressing need to get off, such as a hospital appointment or childcare arrangements.

He said it appeared there had been a failure of management.

"Management should be managing," he said.

Updated: 10:34 Monday, July 12, 2004