The new Royal Mail sorting office in the Bush Industrial Estate has proved immediately unpopular, with complaints from unhappy customers flooding in.

Royal Mail closed the Hornsey sorting office in September, and people have since had to go to the new office in Bush Hill Park, Tufnell Park to collect post.

More than 1,000 residents protested against the planned relocation, with Hornsey and Wood Green MP Lynne Featherstone calling it "unacceptable".

Paul Cannessa, of Allison Road, said getting to the new sorting office from his home was “a complete inconvenience”, taking him 2.5 hours to get there and back as he does not drive.

Hornsey resident Carla de Moraes agreed that the new office was difficult to get to on public transport.

She said: “I really feel for those people who do not have a car as I didn't see a bus stop right outside the new office. It was quite a long road down from the main road, especially if you're holding a large parcel.”

Alex Dickinson, of Weston Park, said the new office had been “immediately terrible”, pointing out that private delivery company DHL will leave parcels in the nearest post office free of charge, whereas Royal Mail does not.

He said: “It’s unbelievable. I can only presume they are secretly in the pay of DHL and trying to put themselves out of business.”

Sue Collingridge, of Crouch End, said that she had found it difficult to reschedule a delivery for her parcel, despite this being one of a raft of new measures promised by Royal Mail to make the move more convenient.

MP for Hornsey and Wood Green Lynne Featherstone said the closure of the Hornsey office was a “huge blow”.

She said:  “Now, residents are faced with travelling to Tufnell Parnell to pick up their parcels, or to pay to have them delivered to a local collection point.

"Royal Mail told us that the new redelivery scheme would solve the problem – but it doesn’t seem to be working."

Ms Featherstone will be meeting Royal Mail representatives before Christmas to discuss complaints.

Royal Mail spokeswoman Sally Hopkins said: “Royal Mail makes every attempt to deliver items to its customers in Hornsey first time, including delivering to a neighbour if the customer is not at home to receive a bulky item or one that needs a signature. 

"If this is not possible, we will return the item to our office for safekeeping and to await a redelivery request from the customer if they do not want to collect the item from us. 

“We are trialling an early morning redelivery service for our customers in Hornsey and we have seen a reasonable take-up of this service since it was introduced in September.

"In a small number of cases, we have not delivered the first class service our customers expect and deserve from Royal Mail and for this we can only apologise. 

"We value feedback from our customers and we are working had to improve our service.  We will be updating local MP Lynne Featherstone accordingly when we meet her in the near future.”