Postal workers who quit their rounds to earn more elsewhere have been blamed for delivery problems in Burgess Hill.

Royal Mail officials at Burgess Hill say they have been struggling to fill vacancies because other local jobs pay more.

Councillors asked Royal Mail managers to answer complaints from householders about late deliveries in the town last year.

Newly-appointed sector manager Mick Hawks, who used to work in northern England, said: "We advertised for three full-time postal workers in Sunderland and 550 people responded. My turnover in staff was four, and that is for a year.

"I have come down to the South and I have a turnover in most offices of 20 staff a month.

"The recruitment problems we have here are horrendous. Because there is so much employment, people just leave en masse. We had two people leave Horsham to clean aircraft at £15 an hour. We can't compete with that."

The sorting office at Burgess Hill has 53 staff delivering 300,000 items of mail a week. Deliveries are now back to normal.

Town councillor Anne Jones said of the recruitment problem: "The basic problem here is that it is far too expensive an area for people to live in and some employees have got to look for something that pays more."