Why junk mail is our biggest post hate

The rising tide of junk mail is the most hated part of the postal service, a survey has revealed.

It beat post office closures, missing mail and long queues at the counter to top the list of irritations in a poll of more than 1,000 customers.

A third of householders interviewed by the consumer magazine Which? said junk mail was "their number one concern with postal services".

The magazine said: "At best, it's an irrita-

tion. At worst, a complete waste of paper that you will have to put in your recycle bin."

The amount of junk mail Royal Mail is allowed to deliver to the 25 million households in Britain could be about to soar. At present it cannot deliver more than three items to each home every week but this limit could be scrapped.

Royal Mail insists it should not be blamed for the increasing amount of junk mail, saying

that if it did not deliver the leaflets businesses would simply use a rival.

In a further blow, the research reveals public satisfaction with the postal service is lower than that for almost every other service, including banks or mobile phone providers.

But a Royal Mail spokesman said: "Our own monthly market research has consistently shown that around 92 per cent of people are satisfied with Royal Mail and around 89 per cent for the Post Offices."