Postal workers have returned to work today after voting overwhelmingly to end their unofficial strike.

But residents and businesses are being warned that it may be some time before normal service is resumed.

In a vote of 309 to just 28, the Communication Workers Union members voted to end the action, which has disrupted services for the past eight days.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "There is a considerable backlog and it is impossible to say how long it will take.

"But we will be working flat out to get things in order as quickly as possible."

He added: "The agreement is essentially the same as what was offered on Friday and yesterday and rejected.

"If it had been accepted when it was originally offered, the people of Oxfordshire could have been spared days of disruption."

Peter Boswell, branch secretary of the CWU, said: "Everybody is pleased it is over. Nobody wanted it in the first place."

He had said that watching strikers going without pay was "heartbreaking".