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Royal Mail refuses to deliver to little UK village as road is too dangerous | UK | News

Royal Mail is refusing to deliver post to an isolated village in Devon due to the narrow country road leading to the area being too dangerous.

One resident is a retired teacher who says she is “livid” with the postal service.

Val Bennallick, 62, has multiple sclerosis and now has to drive seven miles to Okehampton in order to collect her post. She is one of seven other residents of Essworthy, a small village on the outskirts of Hatherleigh in east Devon.

The villagers discovered Royal Mail no longer delivered to them more than a month after the service paused in December. 

“Over the last two years, everybody who lives in a place like ours is slowly being cut off from the system and either has to have a postbox put up somewhere else or collect their mail from Okehampton, which is a 14-mile round trip from here,” she told The Times. 

Ms Bennallick says that residents weren’t told for over a month – and then claimed it was « too unsafe » to drop off mail.

She expressed her confusion over the delay in communication labelling it as « ridiculous ». The retiree claims the postal service is “very sorry” but criticised them for not alerting her to the change prior. 

“The attitude seems to be that ‘oh, you know, one day if we stop somebody’s delivery, one day they’ll wonder why they’re not getting any post and they’ll come in search of it’,” she added. 

Ms Bennallick, although acknowledging the road “wasn’t a good lane”, argued that the residents who live there drove on it everyday.

The former teacher claims that oil deliveries still use the road, with tradesmen and other services able to reach her. She says how Royal Mail’s service is “vital” to her, including receiving medical parcels such as labels for her blood tests. 

The furious resident has complained to Royal Mail on numerous occasions via email, describing the treatment of the locals as “unbelievable, unprofessional, uncaring and downright disgusting”.

In a message, she wrote: “All the upset and stress this has caused would be bad enough for any young, fit person but I have a number of health issues including multiple sclerosis and this has made me ill having to deal with all this and the prospect of having to travel 14 miles to try and get answers and I fear also having to do that same trip for the rest of my life to get my post just fills me with dread and despair.”

A Royal Mail employee responded to the complaint apologising.

They said they were “aware that the lane approach to your property is unsafe and the safety of our employees is paramount,” yet said they will look into ways of resolving this. 

A spokesman for Royal Mail said: “Deliveries were suspended due to concerns from the local team about the poor quality of the private road. We are sorry that this was not communicated to Mrs Bennallick, » reports The Times.

They added: « We are reassessing these deliveries as a matter of urgency and will work with Mrs Bennallick to provide a solution.”


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