Unfortunately it has been necessary to suspend our US based printing station due to technical issues. We would like to assure customers that all letters sent via the US printing station to date have already be sent and remain unaffected by this problem. We are working to solve this issue and hope to have the US based printing station back as an option as soon as possible. In the meantime all US based letters will be sent from the UK.

According to this article a quarter of the UK's Blue Flag beaches are failing to monitor daily sewage contamination. The anti-pollution group Surfers against Sewage have revealed that a quarter of British Blue Flag beaches could be contaminated with sewage from overflows. The information comes from freedom of information requests to local authorities and beach operators. If correct this could mean that thousands of bather might unknowingly have been exposed to raw sewage whilst believing they are swimming in clean water. 131 British beaches have been awarded the Blue Flag status which is only granted if beach operators meet more than 30 strict criteria. The SAS research, however, shows that 35 of the 131 beaches do not meet criterion 28 of the Blue Flag code which require operators to inform the public during and after emergency pollution events such as sewage discharge. The beaches that have no system in place to monitor daily sewage pollution and warn people are listed below.

Cornwall: Polzeath, Gyllyngvase, Carbis bay, Challaborough

Devon: Woolacombe, Bigbury on sea

Isle of Wight: Ventnor, Shanklin, Sandown

Kent: Joss Bay, Margate main, Westgate West bay, Botany bay, Ramsgate main

Suffolk: Lowestoft south, Cromer

Lincolnshire: Cleethorpes central

Yorkshire: Filey, North Bay beach, Whitby west cliff

County Durham: Whitburn north

Wales: Prestatyn central, Llanddona, Fairbourne, Abersoch, Aberporth, Llangrannog, Newagle, Langland, Rest bay

Scotland: Fife West Sands, Elie Ruby bay, Coldingham

Northern Ireland: Coleraine Castle rock, Portrush west, Whiterock west

If you are heading into London in the next week then you might want to check out this giant maze in Trafalgar Square. It has been organised by the West End Partnership and is free to those who want to explore it. Parts of the maze have been named after areas of the West End so that visitors can learn about those places as they find their way around the maze. It will feature a different piece of entertainment from around the West End every day for five days. If you do want to visit it you need to be quick as its only available until the 6th of August.

We do believe that the issue with some PayPal payments not registering in users accounts has now been resolved.

We are currently experiencing some delays with PayPal's servers contacting our own causing a delay to some PayPal top ups. We are currently working with PayPal to resolve this issue and hope it will be resolved shortly. Any customers who experience this issue in the meantime should contact us at the following link.

A 48 hour tube strike will go ahead at 7pm tonight after an effort to get a court injunction to stop it failed. The High Court today refused to grant an injunction to prevent the stoppage. The planned walkout is due to a dispute over pay, jobs and conditions. The strike is likely to affect the Northern Piccadilly and Jubilee lines. Despite the strike London Underground hopes to run a full service in London.

Due to Monday the 31st of May being a Bank Holiday in the UK there are no Royal Mail deliveries or collections on this day. Any mail received after our cut off time of 4pm on Friday the 28th of May will be sent on the next available working day which is Tuesday the 1st of June. This applies to all mail including mail sent using Special Next Day Delivery.

Royal Mail have launched some new stamps to celebrate the war effort of 1940's Britain. The stamps called Britain Alone are dedicated to all the people that came together to do their bit for the war effort. The first class stamp features Sir Winston Churchill, the 67p stamps features air raid wardens. The Home Guard are celebrated on the 60p stamp. Land Girls, women in factories, the fire service, the Royal broadcast and evacuees make up the rest of the set. The stamps were released on the 13th of May.

According to this article the recent change in government will mean that plans for a new runway at Heathrow will be scrapped. It looked at though the new runway would have gone ahead under the Labour government with Gordon Brown saying it was needed for economic reasons. Councils, residents and green groups has all opposed the expansion and it seems the new coalition government agrees with them. It has cancelled the plans for the new runway as part of a joint Conservative Liberal Democrat policy agreement. The new government has also said it will refuse any plans for new runways at Gatwick and Stansted. It is not yet clear whether there will be alternative plans to increase the capacity of Britain's airports but the Conservatives are thought be considering the option of a high speed rail link to and from Heathrow.