More than 30 million letters and parcels may be piled up unsorted and undelivered in Royal Mail depots across the country, thanks to the dispute between the company and its staff.

With no end in sight to the crisis, the Communication Workers Union is now claiming that as many a million packages may never be delivered, because Royal Mail refuses to consider giving staff paid overtime to clear the backlog.

Royal Mail itself claims that the backlog is much smaller than the union contends, at around nine million letters and parcels.

Nevertheless, with the CWU balloting its members on nationwide strike action in the run-up to Christmas, postal service users' misery looks unlikely to end soon.

The result of the strike ballot is due to be announced on October the 8th.