HUNDREDS of Braintree residents have been hit by poor mail service, with many going weeks without a letter or a parcel from the Royal Mail.

According to the official Royal Mail website, Braintree postcodes CM6, CM7, and CM77 are being temporarily affected and have had little or no coverage from the Royal Mail in recent weeks.

One Braintree resident says they have not had post for two weeks.

They said: "My wife and I live in one of the Braintree postcodes suffering from delivery delays.

"We have had little or no post in the last two weeks.

"I am waiting on a package that, according to an email from Royal Mail, arrived at Chelmsford last Saturday morning.

"My partner is still waiting for a small package posted on March 10 and some Mother’s Day cards.

"We have been to the sorting office twice in the last week about this, and we’ve been told that our usual postman is off sick and Royal Mail are not offering overtime, as it’s getting towards their year-end, so no one’s covering.

"Therefore, only if a post person has some spare time after their own round are they helping out.

"This is not providing the service that customers should expect."

On the website Royal Mail said: "Deliveries are operating as normal across the UK today.

"We aim to deliver to all addresses we have mail for, six days a week. In a small number of local offices, this may temporarily not be possible due to local issues such as high levels of sick absence, resourcing, or other local factors.

"In those cases, we will rotate deliveries to minimise the delay to individual customers.

"We also provide targeted support to those offices to address their challenges and restore our service to the high standard our customers would normally receive.

"We're sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding."

For more information about delays, visit royalmail.com/service-update.