HARD working Royal Mail staff in Alloa received the stamp of approval when a politician paid tribute during a visit.

MSP Alexander Stewart was at the delivery office at Castle Street Industrial Estate last week to meet the enthusiastic team and thank them for their effort in delivering all the Christmas mail.

After he was shown around, Mr Stewart gave thanks for a "very warm and friendly welcome", saying it was a privilege to meet the "excellent team".

He said: "I also had the opportunity of meeting the front-of-house team for the first time.

"These are the diligent, customer-facing ladies who deal with visiting customers on a daily basis, to collect parcels and packages as well as answering questions and assisting with all kinds of helpful information.

"It is right also to take this opportunity to pay tribute to everyone's hard work and diligence, both at Royal Mail Alloa and in all their offices across Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole.

"I also paid tribute to them for the truly phenomenal way that all the teams there dealt with all the enormous increase in volume which was put on them by the General Election.

"The exponential increase in literature and packages to and from all parties, as well as everyone's postal votes literally doubled their workload on top of all the Christmas mail.

"The way they dealt with the rising level of small and medium packets so efficiently, as well as the sheer number of large parcels which they have to individually sort on a daily basis, is nothing short of astonishing."