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 2021 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-2021 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!
I have 3 parcels attempted delivery this week and all 3 ended up at the Gyle. The worst part is that I am 2 mins walk from Russell Road. Russell Road is still operational, but only for certain zones and myself who lives right next to it is not in that zone! Neither is my mate at Roseburn. It’s very wrong. Now they charge £1.50 to redeliver and you must spend hours on redial to get an answer. The online system does not work as the mail gets lost. (3 times this happened to me). They wont redeliver to my work on Lothian Road. I am angry, and unfortunatly I cant tell who I buy from online not to use Royal Mail.
Change of subject, but same old Royal Mail:
I am the treasurer (voluntary) of a charity with about 1,000 members so I have to buy a load of stamps several times a year. So I got a Royal Mail cheque guarantee card to avoid having to use my personal credit card.
There was a really long, antiquated, detailed form to fill in and it turned out that I can only use the card at the Post Office where I applied (for God’s sake!). Unlike a commercial credit card there was no automatic renewal (after 2 years), and I was asked to fill out the same form all over again when I went to renew it. I will be trying to bulk-buy stamps elsewhere in future if I can.
I know this sounds a bit petty, but it demonstrates again how little the post office thinks or cares about its customers. The sooner it gets privatised the better.
PS Have you noticed at South Gyle how all the convenient buildings and parking are given over to staff and PO operations, while the poor old customers are lucky to get parked and then have to trudge miles in all weathers???
I regularly get sorry you were out cards as I live in controlled stairway in corstorphine even when I am in. Also my postman has no qualms about ringing every buzzer in the stair even when I am not getting any post, so not sure if postie is wrong or my postman is being helpful. Royal Mail are useless and when you ring up to complain about things they send you free stamps but no resolution to the problem. I can’t really complain about the gyle or Russell road as I leave between both, just wish I did not have to use the collection service so often!
Have just recieved my pick up card in the post - but I have to wait 2 days to PICK UP the parcel from the depot. Is it really going to take 2 days to get back to the gyle? I cant decide if I would rather attempt a redelivery as apparently it will take the same amount of time and save me a trip to the gyle.
I am really annoyed as this parcel was posted to me well over a week ago and now I have to wait another 2 days. Grr.
oh god i totally agree with everthing everyone has said. how about royal mail let us speak to an actual real person. if you dont fall into the right category then no point in phoning the so called ‘customer service line’ cant get thru on phone, and parcel is meant to be in my local post office but it is now in the limbo of the gyle . aaaaarrrrggghhh royal mail and post office i hate you
I am very frustrated at the royal mail. Not only have they moved the depot miles away but after using their website to redelivery my package to my local post office I was informed that they hadn’t received it! I now have to travel to the depot anyways!
Could anyone give me the number for the Western Delivery Office at 21 south Gyle crescent, EH12 9BP?
Have phoned Royal mail and can’t get it, and have phoned numerous numbers which appear to be listed in different places on the internet as the correct one, with no joy! Every time I phone, the line just rings and rings.
Trying to chase down numerous parcels which have not been delivered, but I have no “sorry you were out cards” I feel it’s likely they are just sitting at the delivery office - but can’t get through to find out! Frustrating!
Many thanks in advance :)
RM are appalling - no other company would get away with the level of rubbish service they provide.
I suggest we all complain to the companies which are sending the parcels (if possible) and ask them to stop using RM citing a bad customer experience. Wonder how long it would take for RM to pull their socks up if amazon etc stopped using them?!
Roll on privatisation!
i live in dalry and if i miss package deliver its more or les a 1hour 30 min return bus journy to gyle… + atleast 30 min walk as bus stops no where near it
The whole system is a total shambles. The Royal Mail need to up their game.
After much searching for the number of the parcel office (which, for some reason, seems to be treated as a high security state secret) I stumbled across this website. Have just used the number above (2021 470 6802)and the guy I dealt with was very pleasant but ultimately useless. My parcel seems to have disappeared into thin air. Incredible.
Another moan: To get to the office you have to park in the middle of nowhere, and take a 10 minute walk through a lonely lane bordered by a railway line on one side and a high security fence on the other. I’m not normally the nervous sort, but as a woman on her own I don’t feel that happy doing this walk in broad daylight, nevermind on a dark evening.
Russell Road is still operational, and it is still the parcel office for my friend who lives in Tollcross. I live in Viewforth, but I have to go to Tallents House for my parcels. Uhhh??? Is it *really* so hard for them to organise it so that people who live nearer to the Gyle go to Tallents House, and people who live nearer to Russell Road go there?
And nowadays the redelivery to local post office fee is £1.50, and that’s pretty inconvenient too. Why can’t I arrange redelivery to a post office near where I work? Why can’t I arrange redelivery to my work address, for that matter?
Oh and by the way, the last time they left a note through my door saying the packet is too large, when I finally found time to collect it it turned out to be pretty small, and would easily have fit through my letterbox. Looks as if the posties are under instructions to deliberately fail to deliver in order to generate more income from redelivery fees. I know this sounds very cynical, but I can’t see another reason for it, given that the postie clearly did appear at my door in order to post the note through it.
BTW In case “moan” who posted on May 17th checks in again: are the 22 and 35 buses no good for you to the Gyle? I completely agree that it’s a nuisance to have to go all that way, but the buses do exist.
RUSSELL ROAD SORTING OFFICE NUMBER
I live in Tollcross, so Russell Road is my sorting office. After a long and frustrating time trying to contact Russell Road (looking on the website, calling the general Royal Mail customer line, calling the Delivery Office line), I finally found and called the number given above for Tallents House. Thanks for that!
A real person answered, was apparently much confused by my request, and gave me the number for Russell Road.
Whereupon another real person answered, was then very kind, and did in fact manage to find my lost parcel. Hurrah!
So I thought I would post the telephone number here for others.
Edinburgh West Central Sorting Office
18 Russell Road
Tel: 2021 470 6817
A lot of people referring to the postie “forgetting” to leave a card.
In my experience they simply don’t attempt delivery.
I wish that with the price increases and non-existent Royal Mail service, that a competitor would offer a cheap hub-to-hub service in main UK cities, specifically to cater for ebay purchases etc.
ie the buyer collects from a high street hub and the operator has no operational costs for doing door-to-door deliveries. Simple.
Currently trying to sort out yet another undelivered item without card.