THE Royal Mail may be urging everyone to post early for Christmas - but in Addingham you might not be able to post at all, according to one resident.

Harry Rowlinson, of St Peter's Court, has complained to the Royal Mail because the village post boxes are always full.

"When the Post Office is closed I have to go to Ilkley to post my letters.

"The other day when the weather wasn't very good I thought why should I have to put up with this? I have reached the end of my tether."

Because of his involvement with the local Neighbourhood Watch, Mr Rowlinson frequently has large amounts of post to send but he cannot squeeze them in to the small post boxes in the village.

After an earlier complaint Royal Mail changed the post box on Main Street, replacing it with a larger one.

But Mr Rowlinson said that Royal Mail then axed the early morning mail collection, leaving the box to fill up again by the afternoon.

"They cut the collection by 30 per cent so within three hours of the box being emptied it is full again," said Mr Rowlinson.

He said that the post boxes in the village were not big enough to take into account the growth of population over the last few years and with all the new housing planned for Addingham, the situation would only get worse.

Mr Rowlinson said: "When I came here 20 years ago the population was fewer than 1,000, now it is 3,000 and will soon rise to around 3,500."

He urged residents to complain to the Royal Mail to make sure that promises to install a new. larger size, post box next year would be kept.

A spokesman for the Royal Mail said: "The Royal Mail prides itself on responding to the needs of its customers. We have looked at the provision of post boxes in Addingham and we will be replacing the box outside the Post Office with a larger one.

"We will also be replacing two smaller boxes which are post mounted with pillar boxes in the very near future."

The Royal Mail says it is heading for a record breaking Christmas mailbag in the Ilkley district this year.

"This Christmas we anticipate delivering more greetings than ever before," said Royal Mail Ilkley area manager Dennis Ferry.

Last recommended posting dates for Christmas are tomorrow, December 18 (second class) and Tuesday, December 22 (first class).

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