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Power cut chaos hits city postal deliveries
POSTAL workers are today delivering a huge backlog of mail following an hour long power cut which brought chaos to Peterborough's main sorting depot.
POSTAL workers are today delivering a huge backlog of mail following an hour long power cut which brought chaos to Peterborough's main sorting depot.Homes and businesses across the city were without post yesterday (3 February) after the blackout had left Royal Mail staff unable to sort out hundreds of items of mail overnight ready for the morning deliveries.
It meant normal deliveries from the Werrington centre to the delivery offices covering the Peterborough area could not take place.
Dozens of postal workers could only sit in the canteen on Tuesday night after the power cut caused the entire mailing system at the Werrington depot in Papyrus Road to crash.
The blackout hit the centre and 607 other premises along the same road at about 11.10pm following a fault in an underground cable.
Although electricity was restored at about 12.25am, machines at the centre failed to power up, the lights would not turn on and the heating would not work. It meant mail could not be processed and lorries could not get in or out of the building because the entrance and exit barriers would not work.
One worker claimed the power cut had even caused the centre's retractable roof to open automatically and it had stayed open for several hours allowing the freezing air in.
Machine operators who started at 10pm were not sent home until 5.20am, just 40 minutes before their shift was due to finish, while the manual sorters who started at 11pm were not sent home until 5.45am.
Spokesman for the Communications Workers Union (CWU) Mark Cook said machines were operating by yesterday afternoon but a decision was made by Royal Mail and the union for staff to be sent home. He said: "Staff were sent to the canteen where there was a generator and refreshments."
Shifts resumed at 10pm last night and posties across the city will deliver both Wednesday and today's mail on their rounds this morning.
One worker on the 11pm shift, who wished to remain anonymous said: "The mail centre got cold, there were no hot drinks because there was no power to the machines. When external power was restored the mail centre wasn't able to power up, the entire workforce was sat idle in the canteen, the machines weren't running. The lights wouldn't come back on, the heating wasn't working, mail wasn't processed, lorries couldn't get in or out because the barriers wouldn't rise or fall, it was a complete nightmare."
A Royal Mail spokesman declined to comment about claims from staff or give details about the backlog. He said: "Due to a major power outage overnight at our Peterborough Mail Centre, there was severe disruption to deliveries."
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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