ROYAL Mail has warned of disruption as staff at its Hereford delivery office take time off work due to Covid.

Royal Mail said it may not be able to collect post from customers in the HR3, HR5 and HR9 postcode areas for the rest of this week.

Those postcodes are for Hay-on-Wye, Kington and Ross-on-Wye.

Royal Mail website said anyone with urgent post can take it, with paperwork, to the Hereford delivery office in Station Approach before 5.30pm.

For customers in Ross-on-Wye, a driver will be available to take post at the Maltings Post Office at 4.50pm, and at the postbox at Ross-on-Wye delivery office, in Alton Road, at 5.50pm.

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The website added: "We apologise for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding at this time. We'll return to normal service as soon as we can."

A spokesperson for Royal Mail said the disruption had come from staff being off work due to coronavirus.

"The vast majority of mail is delivered safely and on time," they said.

"We aim to deliver to all addresses we have mail for, six days a week.

"In the local area, we have been experiencing some disruption to services due to Covid-related sickness absence.

"We apologise to customers for any inconvenience they may experience as we work hard to resolve the situation.

"Anyone who has concerns over the delivery of their mail should contact the Royal Mail customer service team on 03457 740 740 or via the Royal Mail website www.royalmail.com."

OTHER NEWS:

The number of coronavirus cases in Herefordshire increased by 1,288 in the last six days, official figures show.

A total of 26,059 people had been confirmed as testing positive for Covid-19 in Herefordshire when the UK coronavirus daily dashboard was updated on December 29 (Wednesday), up from 24,771 on Thursday.