There are regular massive queues at Oxford’s main Post Office in St Aldate’s as a result of understaffing caused by management policy.

In the past few weeks, I have visited the post office on six occasions on different days of the week and at different times of day, and on every occasion I found that the queue was at least 12 deep, and 15 minutes long.

It is not untypical to find only three of the eight counters open and a queue of 20 or more people.

I learned from talking to a member of staff there that the reason for understaffing at St Aldate’s is policy coming down from management above the branch level.

The management obviously have not visited St Aldate’s recently, since they seem to be of the opinion that it was overstaffed.

I gathered that several full-time staff had been laid off or withdrawn in recent months and not replaced, leaving only a few full-time staff and a limited number of part-timers, and that staff have taken time off work with stress, no doubt due in part to the fact that so many customers are fed up and angry by the time they finally get to the front of the queue.

Post Office Ltd’s senior management should be made to wait in line to send a recorded delivery package at a random time every day from St Aldate’s.

But no doubt they would never visit – they have someone else to do that sort of thing for them.

Simon Rippon, Woodin’s Way, Oxford