The Communication Workers Union (CWU) at Royal Mail and Parcelforce have called on their members who collect, sort and deliver to take strike action on the following dates:

• Friday 26 August
• Wednesday 31 August
• Thursday 8 September
• Friday 9 September

Around 98% of our parcels are sent with Royal Mail so this will have a huge impact on our service. We have explored other options but it's expected that other delivery companies will be overwhelmed with extra deliveries as a result, most are already struggling with staffing issues and won't cope with an increase in demand.

Unfortunately it's just not the actual dates above that will be impacted. Royal Mail will be suspending Special Deliveries the day before the strikes and for several days after until they can guarantee a regular service. We are fully expecting that parcels sent via our free postage option (1st Class Post) will take 7-10 days to arrive as there will be huge back logs at sorting offices. We don't expect to be able to offer Next Day deliveries until at least 3 days after the strike dates.

As a consequence we have decided to close the website and office from the 25th August and re-open on the 5th September, we won't be taking any orders during this time. We will then assess the situation regarding the further planned strike dates on the 8th & 9th September. It's a possibility we may need to close for another period of time until Royal Mail are back up to speed but it's impossible to tell as this stage.

It's still a possibility that the Union & Royal Mail will reach an agreement and the strikes may never go ahead in which case we will try to resume service as soon as possible.

Our telephone will be off while we are closed but if you need to get in touch about a previous order then please email us sales@willrose-electrical.co.uk and we will get back as soon as we can.