A First Class postal service?

A Highland News and Media investigation into how Royal Mail is serving Moray and the wider region.

Scroll down to see what we found.

We posted a total of 177 First Class letters, from 12 sites across the region, over five days, and tracked when they arrived.

We found that Royal Mail’s rate of late letters, across all three receiving locations, was nearly three times higher than its target.

The sending locations which faced the highest rate of delayed letters were Aberlour and Dingwall, with 40% each.

This was followed by Aviemore, with 33%, and Banff, with 27%.

All other areas recorded a figure between 7% and 17%.

But the most common result of 13% was nearly twice Royal Mail’s 7% target.

We found the day of the week letters were picked up from the postbox had a surprising bearing on their chances of arriving late.

More than half of the letters collected on Tuesday arrived late.

However, no letters picked up on a Friday arrived late.

We also analysed the figures for the 59 letters sent to Moray’s biggest town.

We found that the chance of letters arriving late ranged from 0% to 40%.

We found that letters from Aberlour and Dingwall performed worst, with 40% of letters arriving late in Elgin.

Aviemore and Banff were tied for the second-worst performance, with 20% of letters arriving late.

However, most senders had no letters arrive in Elgin late, including those in distant locations like Ullapool and Watten.