THOUSANDS of letters are arriving up to a week late in Burnley as the town's postmen struggle to adapt to new workloads.

Union bosses have revealed that residents and businesses are receiving no mail for up to seven days at a time.

The problem at Burnley's central sorting office is blamed on the second post being cancelled just before Easter, which postmen say has led to a massive backlog.

Angry workers say they warned Royal Mail bosses that introducing the new system before the Easter weekend would lead to chaos.

Changes in the system implemented on March 29 meant that the second post would be scrapped - causing extra work for sorting office staff and postmen.

Stuart Caddy, a postman and leader of Burnley Borough Council, said staff have been working hard to alleviate the problems. He added: "Since the major changes came about, postmen and postwomen have been working longer hours and tirelessly trying to catch up with the backlog.

"We have drafted in casual staff from the Manchester area to help with deliveries. It's a task even for the postmen with 25 years of experience to get to grips with the new system."

Many disgruntled residents have contacted the Lancashire Evening Telegraph complaining they haven't received any post for more than a week.

One unhappy customer, Peter Hargreaves, secretary of the East Lancashire Football League, said the postal delays have played havoc with his life.

Peter, who lives in Pierce Close, Padiham, said: "It has been a great inconvenience to have to wait since April 8 for the post. I usually get half a dozen letters each day so I can input scores and record leading goal scorers and results but I haven't been able to do that.

"The problem is that clubs can be fined for not getting the results in on time but through common sense I have had to wave that.

"I received my first batch of post today which contained 27 letters, some of them with urgent on the front and some of them dated back to April 7.

"This is simply not good enough, it's not just me that's suffering."

A spokesman for the Communication Workers Union (CWU) said: "We said that it wouldn't be a good idea to start single deliveries just before Easter and warned it would lead to a backlog. It's been a bit of a shambles really because of the timing of the changes."

But a Royal Mail spokesman said: "The new system has changed the way the postmen and women work within individual delivery offices and taking on deliveries in different areas. We put our hands in the air and say that there are teething problems at almost every other office where single deliveries have been introduced. We are doing all we can to get things right and employing extra staff to help.

"The changes mean that people won't get deliveries at a set time and that's a hard fact. Some may get them early morning and some may get them late morning. It has never been the case that we guarantee delivery times.

"With our first class post we say that it's a next day service. The second delivery made up only four per cent of our mail bag but represented 20 per cent of our cost."