Here is a response from the Royal Mail Delivery Centre Manager about the enquiry I picked up on the Headington and Marston Forum about 48 hour delivery delays:

I am sorry that it has taken me so long to get back to you on this. It has
been extremely hectic at this end. I have had discussion with a couple of
my delivery officers and I think that they were being over cautious when
they put 48 hours on the card. We have had a few occasions when 24 hours
has been put on the card and for whatever reason the item has not been
ready for collection. I think on this occasion the postman concerned was
just trying to avoid the customer a wasted journey to the delivery office.
I will be telling the staff in Headington to ensure that they only place 24
hours onto the docket cards from here on in. I will also be reviewing the
process that we follow for the collection of “docket left” items in the
Headington section to ensure that we do not have any more instances of
packets taking longer than 24 hours to be ready for collection.

During the Christmas period we are going to be operating revised hours for
our callers office and I was hoping that you could also put this on the
forums.

Mon – Fri 06:30 – 19:30 (8/12 – 23/12)

Saturdays 06:30 – 17:30 (13/12 and 20/12)

Christmas Eve 06:30 – 14:00

The cards that we received from the printers have incorrect dates on them
and only show the additional hours from next week. However we will still be
open as advertised above.

We are also offering the Local Collect service for free over the festive
period. Local Collect is the facility to have items (not special Delivery
items or Royal Mail tracked items) delivered to a local post-office so that
customers can pick the items up from there.