A MAIL crisis could be solved within days after managers met with staff to discuss problems that have led to thousands of letters remaining undelivered.

The Communications Workers' Union arranged a meeting between postal workers and management at the Royal Mail sorting office in Darlington yesterday.

Some homes in Darlington received post on Sunday as postal staff desperately tried to clear a backlog of mail caused by the implementation of a cost-cutting scheme to combine first and second posts.

Deliveries have been affected by long delays, with Royal Mail employees working double their standard shifts in an effort to get post delivered.

Union representatives said they had a productive meeting with managers and staff yesterday in a bid to clear up the problem.

Staff got to put their points of view to managers, and managers promised to take steps to resolve the problems within days.

Phil Graham, Darlington branch secretary of the Communication Workers' Union, said: "Managers did make a cack-handed job of organising the change, because they did not listen to staff from the outset.

"But now they have listened to the front-line staff, who at the end of the day are the ones who know what they are talking about, we hope things will be resolved and deliveries will be back to normal within a week or two."

The problems were also exacerbated by large numbers of staff going off sick, believed to be caused by stress since the new system came into effect.

One unnamed worker said that sackloads of letters had remained undelivered on Friday.

Postal workers had also been confronted by residents furious that their mail was arriving up to six hours late.

Royal Mail admitted there were "teething problems" with the new system, but said that it was trying to sort them out.