The Royal Mail may or may not be in decline but it is facing incredible challenges having both to compete against other private businesses whilst remaining affordable to you and I. Its not the local posties that are seeing the new' opportunities' as inconvenience- its the management who are making too many difficult demands on delivery staff without putting appropriate alternatives in place or ensuring they have the full capacity to do their job. Parcels etc have indeed increased the potential workload but putting it all, literally, on the shoulders of local staff to manage is typical and as usual not very productive.
I'd like to see private companies doing such a good job on the limited resources- note my view on Citylink- if you ever go to their depot in Kangley Bridge Road to collect something that probably was never put onto a van in the first place either , you will witness quite a few unhappy recipients complaining about the same thing.

I have another story about Home Delivery Network staff leaving a parcel just behind our dustbin on bin day. Guess what happened to that......