Royal Mail, going the extra 4.5 miles
Residents in the West of Edinburgh, used to collecting their undelivered Royal Mail items from the sorting office on Russell Road, now have an additional 4.5 miles travel to collect their undelivered mail. Instead of a pleasant early morning walk to collect the items it’s now a busy, undesirable commute to South Gyle.
Royal Mail have relocated their Western Delivery Office to Tallents House on South Gyle Crescent. This is extremely inconvenient for local residents, the majority of who will be at work when the parcels and special delivery items are delivered, often at 11 o’clock in the morning. The workarounds are:
- Brave the busy traffic and waste over an hour travelling to the Gyle. Not really an option.
- Arrange redelivery. That’s a late start or day off from work. A different address can’t be chosen for Special Delivery or tracked items.
- Pick up from a local post office i.e. pay 50p for the inconvenience of a Post Office which opens at 9am and closes at 5.30pm (the Western Delivery Office opened at 7am). A good idea would be redelivery to a Post Office near your place of work. Royal Mail don’t think so and they only allow Post Offices near your home to be selected.
Overall a big annoyance for local residents. Royal Mail: as they struggle to reduce their costs, the service falls still further.
For information, The West Delivery Office has now relocated to 21 South Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh, EH12 9PB. The Royal Mail neglected to mention the opening times on the stickers attached to the delivery cards.
Have just spent an hour trying the internet and Royal Mail’s abysmal phone system in an attempt to find out whether the postie had forgotten to leave me a note explaining that my Amazon parcel hadn’t fit through the door. The customer service drone whom I finally reached insisted that there was no way the postie would have forgotten to leave a note, and refused to give me the phone number for the delivery office. I only wanted to phone up and ask if there was a parcel filed under my name or postcode sitting in their office - is that too much to ask? What’s more, I can’t find an Edinburgh number for Tallents House, if you have one, please post it! Even 118 118 only have the Russell Road phone number, which just rings and rings. As a result, I’ll have to go back to Amazon and they will send out a new parcel, which is a waste of money and good books, while my original delivery moulders in a pile of undelivered mail. Meanwhile, my second parcel will also be delivered when I am at work, and I will have to wait the required 2 extra days to have it redelivered to my local post office. And that’s if the note comes through the door this time. What’s wrong with leaving undelivered mail with your local post office, and a note saying if you don’t collect it in a set time they’ll return it to the delivery office?
phone number for the tallents house office is 0131 4706802. Bloody nightmare getting to the gyle..
the royal mail plainly suck these days.
They don’t care about customers at all. Post offices are closing everywhere, and now you have to travel miles to collect a parcel.
For an item that was missing a 27p stamp, i was charged a £1 handling fee that i paid on the website (£1.27) they still did not deliver. There is no answer at the depot so i have to collect in person with additional costs to myself and the loss of time. All for a 27p stamp.
This company will go out of business if it is run like this. I would encourage all to protest by stop using them until they pull their act together. Clearly motivated by profit rather than service this is the only way to get them to notice.
It is just another example of what has being going wrong in our country for a long time. I say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
It’s not just the extra miles you have to go to get to the Royal Mail Collection Office, it’s the fact it’s pretty impossible to work out where to go when you get there! I had to pick up a package a few nights ago (as I kept turning up there after work on days when it was closed - yeah, I can’t read the times on the back of the slip they leave) and there were three people, including me, wandering around trying to find where the hell to go. Having followed the signs to Reception and for Visitors Entrance, we found an A4 note taped to the door telling us to go back out through the gates, turn right and go back through the main gates (again). Having walked through the “No unauthorised persons beyond this point” sign, a small door finally loomed. Nothing on the door of course, just a small sign next to it. It was like a Treasure Hunt. Helps us keep our brains sharp I suppose.
Don’t forget, the new office is handier for some folk, even if not yourself.
I live just off the guideway and work along at the Gyle so quids in for me compared to trekking into Russell Road!
Same as someone else above, postie didn’t bother to put a card through the door to say they had tried to deliver my parcel and as I didn’t know the office had moved, had absolutely no idea where it was. The Royal Mail line was a nightmare to try to talk to an actual person then when I finally did they gave me a wrong phone number! Eventually after a few more frustrating calls managed to get the number & spoke to a rather grumpy man who told me to call back at 8am!
Managed to request redelivery B U T package has not been delivered. Have wasted a whole saturday.Wonder if it will come monday.I can’t go to the office as I am unable to walk far.
Good luck getting through to Tallents House on the phone, my experience is it’s always engaged. Totally agree with everythng you have said about the new delivery centre, it’s a nightmare. At rush hour, it’s an hour round trip and if you don’t have a car, not sure what you are supposed to do.
Hi, thanks for the info guys.
Trying to track down a parcel (no note left) and very hard to find details of new sorting office on the internet, so thanks for the address and phone number.
Anita
And they, or Parcel Force, just leave could not deliver cards’ without even coming up the stairs with the parcel. I know this, because if you catch them as they try to run away down the stairs they sau they tried to deliver yesterday and parcel/ package is in the depot.
No point whinging. Avoid using them and write to your MP supporting the privatisation of these ‘businesses’!
the west delivery office is now open from 7am to 7pm mon-fri and 7am-1130 on sat or you can get your parcel redelivered to a post office nearest your home or work.russell road was ideal for some customers and not for others as is the the new office is ideal now for the people who had hassle before,so people moaning about its location now, should remember about the people who had to travel into town before.if you stay in a building with a security door and have buzzers its difficult to get in as posties are only aloud to buzz the buzzer that the parcel or package is addressed to,if no answer you will probably get a card the next day when the postman can get in when delivering letters.eg saturday morning 710 am(its your day off, great!! long lie)postie buzzers you to get in your building to deliver a packet for your neighbour,that’ll keep you happy eh,ehhh no.location of pick up point at tallents house,drive thru the gates if open that is,straight on over the speed bumps,small hut on left hand side with a bicycle parking area on the right,park your car just beside this area and walk round the path as sign posted it s for your own safety.if walking-thru the gates and follow the path from the gates straight to the office,sounds easy eh.and a wee comment on the customer who had to pay the handling charge,you think its just you who got a letter with no stamp on it,there are millions of letters a week sent with no stamps on them or not enough postage paid for the item.which means royal mail have still carried them from where they were sent to where they were to be delivered for nothing and should be compensated for it(not royal mails fault it got sent with no stamp on it)a lot to think about when your moaning and dont know the full picture.
No one ever answers the phone at the depot. I keep trying to call several times a day and no one ever picks up. At other times, I call and the number is busy, but when I try to call again a few minutes later, no one answers. In addition, the postman does not regularly deliver mail to my building and often forgets to leave sorry you were out cards. When I call the depot, they tell me nothing is there. When I call again days later, there is a whole pile of OLD mail for me. I don’t know what is going on, but this is terrible!
HA as many people have said above I was also not left a ’sorry you were out’ card so I didn’t think much of it, a week later I sent an email to the company I was buying from and they told me royal mail had tried to deliver my parcel a week ago. Just been on the phone to the sorting office ( rang for about 5 mins, no answer) then I try and call bak 2 mins later and it’s engaged. What are they up to?
Same issue here. I get no ‘Sorry You Were Out Cards’ yet the parcels collect dust and
a)Go back to the sender
b) disappear off the face of the planet.
At present I have 2 parcels missing, (one of them will be bloody huge too so they can’t miss it), another sent to the sender, and I have already complained to the ‘boss’.
I’ve caught a postman twice runing off leaving cards WHILE I AM IN, and they say “oooh its in the depot”
Get it sorted RM!
Royal Mail attempted to deliver to me on 24th feb a recorded packet which must be signed for! I eventually got through to them on 2nd March to arrange delivery to a local post office the following day. All good except the post office I selected was (and is) closed for refurbishment which I didn’t know and neither did royal mail at the time of my call. Now, it’s 9th March, and regardless to how many calls I make or emails I send nobody can find my parcel, and now i can’t get through on the phone AGAIN, what the f*&k is going on with them?
Jackpot! I live in South Gyle and had to go all the way to Russell Road to collect my meail. Now I can pop round the corner and get it. Some you win, some you lose!