Letters were spilling out of full postbox

It happened at the postbox at Willowfield Manor on the Gilford Road. According to reports received by a local DUP councillor, the postbox had been left until letters were spilling out on the street.

Councillor Carla Lockhart understood the situation had been going on for some days.

She told the ‘MAIL’: “I received a call from a man in Upper Toberhewny who was very concerned about a postbox that does not seem to have been emptied in possibly weeks with sympathy cards, birthday cards, bills all left undelivered. You can actually retrieve post from it because it is so full,” she said last week.

As of last Thursday the post box had been emptied.

Barbara Roulston, spokesperson for Royal Mail said : “Every postbox contains a barcode which is scanned by the postman when he empties the box. This gives us a record of the time and date that collections are carried out.

“Our computer records show that the postbox on the Gilford Road has been emptied correctly in recent weeks. There have been no missed collections. Volumes of mail in this postbox are normally low and would not cause the box to overflow. However, small wall boxes such as this one can occasionally get blocked by a parcel leading to other mail spilling out.

“We will be keeping an eye on this postbox to check that this does not re-occur and to test whether increased volumes of mail in the box mean we need to consider carrying out an additional collection.”