Royal Mail opens temporary Rochdale parcel sort centre to deal with Christmas volumes

Royal Mail

Royal Mail is opening a temporary parcel sort centre in Rochdale for the Christmas period.

The Rochdale temporary parcel sort centre is one of nine being set up to sort a significant proportion of the seasonal parcels Royal Mail handles, before they are delivered to the door by Royal Mail’s postmen and women.

Around 3,300 seasonal workers will be based in the parcel sort centres. They will support Royal Mail’s 120,000 permanent postmen and women, who sort and deliver the mail all year round, including Christmas which is the busiest time of the year for the UK postal service. Royal Mail Group is taking on around 19,000 seasonal workers in total this year across its operations.

This is the sixth year that Royal Mail has opened a dedicated network of parcel sort centres. The use of additional temporary parcel sort centres is now an integral part of Royal Mail’s substantial financial commitment to additional resources at Christmas, to handle the festive mail bag.

The parcel sort centres are in Rochdale, Bathgate in West Lothian, Leeds, Pontyclun in South Wales, Birmingham, Swindon, Greenford, Atherstone, and Coventry for international parcels and cards. The centres will open on a phased basis from 31 October 2016.