By Lesley Walsh
CHRONIC postal delays across the Ards and North Down borough show no sign of abating as more residents report late hospital letters, mis-delivered mail and a lack of post through their letterboxes for several days at a time.
Residents of the Rosehill area of Newtownards are among the latest group of local ratepayers to complain of the scarcity of postal deliveries, with one householder reporting that the small cul-de-sac of six homes where she lives, received no post for a considerable time before Christmas.
Janet Elliott said she had to collect postal items from the Frances Street sorting office, beside the Frances Street Post Office which closed on November 12.
She said though parcels arrived, letters and Christmas cards were noticeably absent for a lengthy period. “From November 28 there was nothing. I would normally get Christmas cards, from around December 1st, because I have friends who always send their cards to arrive by December 1st, but there was nothing up to December 8, and nothing the following week.
“So I went up to the sorting office around the 15th or 16th because there was no way I shouldn’t have cards by then and I thought I would ask for the other houses in my street so I took them round and delivered them and it looked like there was a whole lot of important stuff, including hospital letters – it wasn’t just Christmas cards,” she said.
“They said they were prioritising parcels because there were so many,” she said.
The Rosehill residents were eventually visited by a postal delivery person on December 28 and since then post has arrived between two to three times per week.
Her neighbour, Dawn Wilson said she too failed to receive Christmas cards until Janet’s collection, and said Royal Mail staff said they were short staffed. After Janet performed her own postal delivery to Dawn and their neighbours, Dawn said she asked a postwoman about the problem.
“She said they just didn’t have anybody for the area. She said she had been brought up to do this area but they told her they didn’t have anyone to cover it at the moment.”
A number of local people took to social media in response to last week’s Chronicle story which reported on ‘persistent’ delays in the Rivenwood area of Newtownards, where residents have had to deliver mis-delivered mail to each other, organised through a community WhatsApp chat.
One follower of the newspaper, echoed the difficulties of householders in the development, off the town’s Movilla Road, stating:
“It’s not just Rivenwood, it’s happening all over Ards. I keep getting mail and parcels for a woman who lives around the corner from me. Clearly the postmen they send to us need to go to Specsavers.”
Posting on social media on January 23, another resident said: “It’s every post code in Ards. I had a hospital letter delivered yesterday that was sent on the 9th. Luckily, I’d also had an email.”
Another said she had ‘received a letter that was dated 11/12/25. It arrived 24/12/25’, quipping ‘I think the pigeon got lost’.
“Ards Peninsula is the same, plus we are lucky if we get post once a week or sometimes it is once every two weeks.”
“Lawnbrook in Stratheden can go weeks with no letter then all of a sudden you get about 20 through the door.”
A neighbour agreed, stating: “It’s Stratheden too. No post for weeks on end.
“I posted a letter from Ards to Lisburn on December 8 and it only arrived last week.”
