By Ruth Banks

Complaints about missing letters and parcels soared in Kent last year – despite falling across the rest of the UK.

Gripes over lost items in the TN, ME, DA, CT and BR postcode areas rose by just over a third between 2008/09 and 2009/10 – from 13,000 to almost 18,000.

The worst part of the county was the TN postcode with 5,032 complaints – more than double the number filed in the BR area.

The losses led to Royal Mail paying out £313,204 in compensation to Kent residents, which works out at almost £18 per person.

A Royal Mail spokesman said services were disrupted by strike action taken last autumn by the Communication Workers Union (CWU).

But Nigel Woods, senior policy advocate for Consumer Focus said he wasn’t convinced by that explanation.

He said: "I find it odd that Royal Mail is putting complaints over lost mail down to the strikes last year.

"If there’s a strike going on mail shouldn’t be lost - it should be delayed if anything. And they should also have contingency plans in place.

"The national complaint figures for lost mail actually fell from 2008/09 to 2009/10 from around 590,000 to 563,000, whereas in Kent they’ve gone up. So it does indicate there’s a problem specific to Kent."

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "We’re not able to comment further about the Kent figures without knowing details of all the cases collated under this category.

"However, last year’s industrial action did cause significant disruption to mail services and the complaint figures we publish need to be put into context.

"Customer service is our top priority and we do all we can to give customers the high level of service that they expect and deserve.

"The overwhelming majority of the 18.6 billion letters, packets and parcels we deliver each year arrive safely. However, we do apologise to anyone who has experienced a problem with their mail delivery and advise them to contact us on 08457 740 740 - we take every customer query and complaint very seriously and do our utmost to resolve them."