HADLEIGH postal deliveries are to drop down to one a day from November 3 with the loss of two jobs through natural wastage.The single delivery is part of a national shake-up and is the second one in Suffolk to be cut back following on from Southwold last week.

HADLEIGH postal deliveries are to drop down to one a day from November 3 with the loss of two jobs through natural wastage.

The single delivery is part of a national shake-up and is the second one in Suffolk to be cut back following on from Southwold last week. Deliveries in Saxmundham will be cut back to one a day from next week.

A spokesman for Royal Mail said first and second deliveries will be amalgamated into a single daily delivery usually by lunchtime at the latest.

"Most mail will be delivered well before this with deliveries starting from 7am, for some customers there will be little or no change to their current delivery times."

There is a new free service, however, which means that customers wanting their mail early in the morning will be able to make a secure arrangement to collect it from the delivery office.

The spokesman added: "Second deliveries account for 20 per cent of Royal Mail's costs but represent just four per cent of the daily mailbag.

"So it makes sense to combine first and second deliveries. The changes will help safeguard our six day a week universal service to all 27 million addresses in the UK."

He did not know dates of when other towns would be rolled in to the new on-a-day set up because they happened when the time was right at each office.

"Ipswich, like most other others, still has two deliveries and we don't know of when this will be altered," he added.

With the cuts to delivery comes cuts to job numbers but the spokesman said there will be no compulsory redundancies.

"Both Hadleigh positions are by natural wastage and the job that was cut in Southwold was a retirement," he added.

Royal Mail employs around 80,000 people in its delivery operation so the reduction of jobs through the introduction of single delivery is manageable.

"It is improving customer service and these local changes will also mean a bigger pay packet for every employee," the spokesman said.

Businesses in Hadleigh did not think the loss of the service would affect them very much as few of them received much in the second post anyway.

Martin Freeth, chairman of Hadleigh's chamber of commerce and owner of The Frame Store in the High Street, said: "Loss of the second delivery should not affect us but we will not really know until the service is gone. Businesses will adjust sooner of later, or find another way of sending their mail through email or couriers."