On Wed, 12 Mar 2014 20:35:22 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 20:14:29 on Wed, 12
Mar 2014, Phil Cook remarked:
SD also seems to have an informal "not before 7am", just so they don't
wake people up too early!

It has to get to the office and be processed before it can be issued to
the driver.

But even if they get it earlier, the drivers I talked to (in my PJs)
said they didn't try to deliver before 7am.

As for the rest of the deliveries, they do seem to have crept from
7.30am to noon over the last 20yrs (my anecdata).

Royal Mail went to first and second deliveries to just one some time
ago. The last letter is in theory about 14.00, which counts as
lunchtime. The first may be something like 10.30, but it will depend
where you are on the round.

So they have half the number of deliveries, and the first is a minimum
of around three hours later than before. This is why people think they
aren't getting as good a service any more.

It can depend on which end of the round the postman starts at. When
one delivery a day came in it was evident in some places that the
round was being reversed every few weeks with the result that half the
round was getting the post earlier and the other half later. For some
time now (at least with mine) the delivery time seems to be mostly
unchanging.
The apparently delayed start time possibly also gets out of paying for
working unsocial hours.