The battle for public opinion between postal workers and Royal Mail bosses continued today as both sides made wildly differing claims about the impact of last week’s strikes.

Sources inside Watford’s Ascot Road sorting office claim managers are battling a backlog of some 15,000 items, with even special delivery packages going undelivered.

Royal Mail, however, emphatically denied these claims, saying there was absolutely no backlog and that special delivery items remained its number one priority.

Sources from inside the Ascot Road depot say the two days of national strike action held last week had brought chaos to the building, causing corners to be cut.

One source, who did not wish to be named for fear of losing his job, claimed more than 8,000 special delivery items, costing a minimum of nearly £5 each, had been placed with ordinary first-class mail in a bid to beat the strike.

He said: “These people have paid a minimum of £4.90 each, in good faith, to have these things delivered by 1pm the next day. If they knew they were just going to be slung in with the rest of the mail they wouldn’t have bothered paying extra.

“But that’s just the type of thing that is happening in there at the moment for managers to cope with the backlog. At the moment we’ve got about 15,000 items backed up and morale is at an all-time low – far lower than during the last strikes [in 2007].”

Royal Mail responded by saying both claims were untrue.