David Baines MP paid a visit to the Newton-le-Willows Delivery Office this week.

He showed his support for the posties during the busiest time of the year for the postal service.

The Newton-le-Willows delivery office has added five temporary staff and four extra vehicles to cope with the increased demand.

Festive period

The posties are having to tackle around twice as many parcels and letters during the festive period compared with other months as people send Christmas cards and shop for gifts online.

Mr Baines, MP for St Helens North, wanted to learn more about the hard work needed to deliver letters and parcels during this peak period.

He spoke with customer operations manager, James Fish, about Royal Mail's strategy to keep the process as efficient as possible.

'Pulling out all the stops'

Mr Fish said: "It was great to have David visit our delivery office, and to show him how we are gearing up for our peak period.

"We are pulling out all the stops to deliver Christmas for our customers."

Mr Baines said: "Royal Mail is an iconic part of Christmas in the UK – it wouldn’t be the same without our posties.

"I’ve got a newfound appreciation for what they do after seeing how the operation works.

"On the day I visited they were dealing with more than 3,000 tracked items and over 12,000 letters.

"It’s an incredible effort and essential work, and they have my thanks."

Royal Mail is an essential service this time of year, processing around double the normal volume of letters and parcels.

The extra staff and vehicles are part of the strategy to make sending and receiving parcels as convenient as possible over the festive period.