Frustrated Berkshire residents have been among the thousands of people across the UK who have been affected by the fluctuating delays in postal delivery over the last few years.

Royal Mail has come under fire for poor performance and is currently under investigation by the communications regulator Ofcom after missing delivery targets.

The BBC Panorama team has taken it one step further and has begun an investigation into how delays are impacting people.

The impact of this has been overwhelming across the Royal County as entire villages have been denied their post for months on end.

Here is a round-up of some of the people affected by the Royal Mail shortfalls.

Lambourn

A resident from the rural village of Lambourn explained that the entire village situated in West Berkshire experienced little to no postal service for months on end.

Resident Kiaran O’Brian contacted the Chronicle to explain how this was affecting the community. He said: “For the last six to eight weeks, it has been a disaster. Lambourn has an older demographic, so many people still rely on the postal service.

“People have missed hospital appointments because they haven’t received the letters in the post. This is especially bad because we all know how hard it is to get a hospital appointment these days.

“It has got to the stage where residents are quite literally having to go to the sorting office to collect their own mail. However, with work and other commitments, this isn’t possible for everyone.”

Some residents across West Berkshire were reportedly forced to take time off work to simply collect mail from their local sorting office.

Royal Mail issued an apology to anyone whose life was upended by the postal mayhem.

Bullbrook

Selina Butler, a resident of Bullbrook said that in certain areas across the RG12 2 area, the post had not been delivered since April 17, 2023.

As well as upset, this caused a great deal of worry within the community and for those who were waiting on important letters.

Selina explained at the time: “Multiple complaints have been made and today it was confirmed by Royal Mail that they don't have anyone to deliver to the RG12 2 area and while they can see the post building up, they can't say when it would be delivered.

“Senders have been told that they can claim compensation in the form of stamps if they posted to the area over 10 days ago but the recipient has no claim and this area is not listed as being affected by issues on their website.

“While most areas in Bracknell are receiving daily or every other day deliveries no one has yet considered the possibility of rotating the deliveries so that all areas get mail at least once a week.”

Lower Earley

People in Lower Earley raised complaints that Royal Mail is delivering too much junk mail to their houses instead of “actual post.”

In a post on social media, Henry Thompson aired his grievances at being sent dozens of leaflets rather than his mail delivery.

He said: “Just wanted to say thank you to the Post Office, or Rotten Mail, or whatever they call themselves these days for the delivery today,

“The unsolicited leaflets outnumbered the actual mail items by about 10 to 1, I’ll be looking forward to seeing the next delivery in a fortnights time, if it’s anything like last February we’ll probably get a couple of Christmas cards.”