POSTIES in East Lancashire have been coping with more than three million letters and parcel deliveries in the last three weeks.

Blackburn has been averaging around one million Christmas items of mail a week while Burnley has recorded two million in the last few weeks.

Nationally, more than 2.5billion letters and parcels will be delivered by the Royal Mail to homes across the country -- almost double the normal volume of mail.

Now with just two days to go until Christmas, Blackburn's 235 collection and delivery staff are busying themselves with the mammoth task of getting the town's last minute mail delivered on time today.

Recent disruption to the rail service has not helped matters, but the staff at the Canterbury Street sorting office are confident of getting the job done.

Royal Mail's nightly Skynet service, which links airports throughout the UK, has nearly doubled the number of flights over the Christmas season, bringing the total from 36 to 67.

Delivery office manager John Lily said: "In a normal week we deal with between 700,000 and 800,000 letters. On the first three days of the week before Christmas we had 600,000 letters. On an average day we deliver to between 60 and 70 per cent of the houses, but at Christmas we are stopping at every house."

Staff arrive in work at 5am to sort all the mail and 'prep it' for delivery before it hits the streets between 8.30am and 9.30am. John said: "The rail problems are slowing things down a little bit but we are still coping. During Christmas it's not been so bad. The trains are later and the mail has been coming in here later but because the postmen are going out later with the one large delivery it has worked out all right.

"Hopefully everyone in Blackburn should still get their post on time.

"Morale in the sorting office is pretty good. They have the music on and everyone sings along. It's surprising how cheerful people can be at 5am in the morning!"

The situation was the same at the Burnley sorting office. By the end of today the 210 staff covering Burnley and surrounding areas will have delivered two million letters and cards over the past three weeks. The office's busiest day of the year was Monday when staff delivered 178,000 items of mail.

Delivery office manager Gordon Robinson said: "As ever our postmen and women have pulled out all the stops to get all the Christmas mail out on time despite the problems we've encountered with the rail crisis which has meant a lot of mail has arrived late in Burnley."

The last delivery before Christmas was today. Deliveries will recommence on December 27. All branches will re-open on Wednesday December 27.