ONE of East Lancashire’s biggest firms has said it will no longer use Royal Mail to deliver its goods.

The announcement from Express Gifts, which is based in Church, comes after similar moves from companies including John Lewis and Amazon.

And Mike Damms from the East Lancashire Chamber of Trade said that there were “major concerns” in businesses in the area about the impact of disrupted postal services in the run-up to Christmas.

Union leaders at the CWU announced last week that strikes will take place across the country on Thursday and Friday, with delivery offices closing on Thursday and postmen walking out on Friday.

The union could call further strikes in the run-up to Christmas if the deadlock with Royal Mail in a row over working conditions continues.

It has been further angered after Royal Mail announced it would be taking on 30,000 temporary workers over the Christmas period, twice as many as usual.

Bosses at Express Gifts said that the move to ditch Royal Mail had been made to ensure that the home shopping firm was not adversely affected by any postal strike A spokesman for the company said: “All of our business units have alternative suppliers for mailings, excluding the final delivery mile. This means that the bulk of Royal Mail operations are bypassed and the impact on our business is minimal.”

Mr Damms said: “People are genuinely concerned about the delivery and receipt of goods at the moment.

“Frankly, it seems that it is the smaller companies that are most vulnerable because they rely on Royal Mail.

“We have now been seeing more and more firms diversifying and using private carriers.

“But if you rely on Royal Mail to deliver to your customer or for the receipt and collection of payments then you are going to be nervous.”