An East Lancashire bakery has warned customers of potential delivery delays due to Royal Mail strikes.

Finch Bakery in Great Harwood says some of their orders this week may be delivered late - and future deliveries may also be impacted - as a result of industrial action.

Owners Lauren Sinclair and Rachel Finch allege their orders made on Tuesday (October 25) were dispatched the next day.

They said: “I’m not going to lie, strikes are hitting us hard. All orders made Tuesday were dispatched on Wednesday (October 26).

“This is massively impacting our business as I’m sure it is others. We are experiencing delays with the switch over to our new courier service.

“We have no issues with our current service but strikes are causing us a massive restriction in sales and this is only increasing with future strikes.

“Hopefully, we will be back sorted as soon as possible and we apologise in advance for all the delays in service. Thanks for your custom as usual.”

Earlier this month, picket lines were set up outside Royal Mail delivery and sorting office as workers launched industrial action over pay.

The strikes took place throughout October and more strike action is planned in November.

A spokesperson for the Royal Mail Group said: “The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has notified us they plan to call on their members who collect, sort, distribute and deliver parcels and letters to take strike action over the following six dates in November; Wednesday 2, Thursday 3, Friday 4, Tuesday 8, Wednesday 9, Thursday 10.

“The planned strikes involve CWU members in different areas of our organisation, with each area taking strike action on different days. This means most services will only be affected on one or two of the days during the planned days of strike action that week.

“We’re sorry this strike action is likely to cause you some disruption. We will be working to get our services back to normal as quickly as possible.

“Royal Mail has well-developed contingency plans, but we cannot fully replace the daily efforts of our frontline workforce. We’ll be doing what we can to keep services running, but you should expect some disruption on the strike dates.”