A PACKAGE containing important examination papers took 45 days to travel just 12 miles.

The delay led to exams for St John Ambulance volunteers being cancelled and is the latest in a series of complaints since Royal Mail shifted its entire Sussex sorting operation to Gatwick.

The package containing the papers was sent from Ringmer on November 15. It did not arrive in Brighton until December 30.

As a result, four trainee St John volunteers have still not taken their basic life support exams, originally scheduled for November.

Furious Brighton and Hove divisional superintendent Terry Wing said: "Perhaps we should revert back in time the way the Royal Mail seems to have done.

"The next thing they'll do is re-issue the Penny Black. But I doubt even the old stagecoach would have taken 45 days.

"Maybe we should reintroduce whipping posts for the management responsible for the decline in what was once the best postal service in the world."

Since the move to Gatwick, which began last March, residents have claimed the service has descended into chaos.

Brighton supermarket manager Tony Scott had to go to London to pick up legal documents by hand when they failed to turn up two months after they were sent.

And 500,000 Royal Mail customers with BN and RH postcodes received their first post as late as 3.30pm for three weeks.

Mr Wing said: "We had important examination papers in there. This package was clearly addressed and included the correct post code.

"We wrote to the Royal Mail and the return letter bore no resemblance to an apology for the gross inconvenience caused."

The delayed package also included guidance documents for ambulance drivers.

The St John trainees are now due to sit their exams later this month.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "We would like to apologise for the unusually long delay to the mail and the inconvenience caused.

"It is difficult to identify the problem, but the item was probably misplaced at one stage of the sorting and delivery process.

"This was an unacceptable error on our part, but one which unfortunately does happen when Royal Mail is processing 75 million items every working day."

He insisted the delay was not caused by the transfer of mail sorting to Gatwick and that the centre is now operating at 2.5 per cent above national efficiency levels.

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