THE Royal Mail has come up with a radical way of boosting deliveries.

Firms complaining about late postal deliveries in the North-East were stunned to be told: "If you want it any quicker you'll have to fetch it yourself."

In a bid to save money Royal Mail is combining the first and second posts.

Small firms reckon the shake-up, which is meant to make the system more efficient, has led to long delays.

In Darlington, some mail is now arriving hours after the second delivery would normally have dropped through the letterbox.

Some companies are not receiving a delivery until late afternoon.

If they are unhappy with the new service, customers are advised to contact the helpline where they are told that if they want their mail before lunchtime, they can arrange to collect it from the sorting office at 8.30am.

The changes are supposed to help Royal Mail save more than £100m a year.

The Royal Mail says it has to reduce costs if it is to offer a nationwide delivery service.

While bigger businesses that have their post delivered by van will be largely unaffected in the shake-up, smaller businesses which are on walking routes could see their post arriving later.

A Royal Mail spokesman said this was because some walking routes had to be changed. Where some areas were at the beginning of a route before, they may now be at the end and receiving their post a lot later.

John Dean, of Inscribe Media, based in the West End of Darlington, said his post used to arrive at about 9am, but yesterday it was delivered at 3.30pm.

"Before, the service was absolutely excellent, but this last week some of the deliveries have been very late, which when you're running a small business, it doesn't help you.

"I contacted the customer services and was offered the service to go and collect my own mail, but that's not really an option. You expect a decent postal service. The posties are terrific, but the system is letting them down."

Peter Troy, of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: "For small businesses the disruption to the postal service is always bad news, they are very dependent on receiving post swiftly, for cheque payments and so on.

"This is totally unsatisfactory, but unfortunately Royal Mail has the monopoly. This will put a strain on small businesses."

The Royal Mail spokes-man said that it would take staff time to get used to the new single delivery system, but eventually all post will be delivered before noon.

He added that domestic customers could also apply to pick up their own post.

"It's a simple matter of writing a letter to the delivery office manager, then making sure you always have identification when you stop by," he said.

He urged anyone unhappy with the new service to contact the Royal Mail customer helpline: 08457 740740