Puzzled residents in Borehamwood's Lullington Garth discovered where their missing post had gone this week ? it was dumped in a nearby hedge.

Around 100 bills, cheques and personal letters, addressed to people living in the area, were found in the hedge between Lullington Garth and Furzehill Road.

A resident of Lullington Garth discovered them with a friend on Monday afternoon and contacted Royal Mail to have them redistributed.

Royal Mail said the problem had been caused by a temporary worker from an employment agency who worked for only one day, on Monday last week, to cover staff holidays.

Mick McDoran, of Lullington Garth, and Marc Casco found two bundles of post, one stamped as being posted on July 30 and another from July 25.

'The post often goes to the wrong addresses on this street ,, it's a bit of a lottery as to whether you get it or not,' said Mr McDoran.

Mr Casco said: 'A lot of the post was addressed to people in Masefield Avenue, and I know one person living there who is going on holiday and was worried because he hadn't received his passport.'

A Royal Mail spokeswoman said the temporary worker had dumped letters in the hedge and put other post he was supposed to deliver back into a postbox.

Adecco, the Borehamwood-based employment agency which provided the worker, is now carrying out an internal investigation, with the assistance of Royal Mail.

The firm claimed that everyone assigned to delivering post had their work history over the last three years checked.

But Mr Casco believes this was not an isolated incident. 'This was definitely not a one-off ,, it couldn't be because we found two bundles that had been posted a week apart,' he said.

Royal Mail said several temporary postal delivery staff, employed through agencies, were working in Borehamwood this summer, but claimed the rest were satisfactory.

'Regrettably one young man did not deliver the mail he should have done,' said the spokeswoman. 'We apologise to customers who have suffered delays and inconvenience as a result of this individual's actions.'

Royal Mail believes that it has recovered all the mail which was lost through the incident.