For many islanders, delays to the postal service are an inescapable part of life. But that should no longer be the case for those living in Orkney, after it became the first place in Britain to have mail delivered by a drone. The new Royal Mail service will see post transported from the Kirkwall delivery office to the village of Stromness, where drones will then transfer items to posties on the islands of Hoy and Graemsay for their regular routes. Currently, mail arrives at Kirkwall Airport before being sent by plane or ferry to Orkney's 19 inhabited islands. But the challenging geography and weather conditions often result in delivery disruptions.

Royal Mail has begun using drones to deliver post in the Orkney islands, helping pave the way for drone deliveries to islands around the UK and on the mainland during emergencies. The service between the village of Stromness on Orkney's main island to the nearby islands of Hoy and Graemsay, using aircraft able to carry up to 6kg, is Royal Mail's first permanent drone delivery service. Using drones allows Royal Mail to provide a faster and more secure delivery service to islands such as the Orkneys, avoiding ferries or scheduled air services subject to weather cancellations, tides and timetables that do not suit the postal service. Royal Mail has been testing and evaluating drone services on Scottish islands for some time, as has the NHS, which has trialled their use for flying urgent medical samples from the small Hebridean islands of Coll and Tiree. Chris Paxton, the head of drone trials at Royal Mail, said these flights were far faster and more efficient, and helped cut carbon emissions.

The UK's National Health Service has announced that it will test delivering vital chemotherapy drugs via drone to the Isle of Wight. The body has partnered with Apian, a drone technology startup founded by former NHS doctors and former Google employees. Test flights are due to begin shortly, and it's hoped that the system will reduce journey times for the drugs, cut costs and enable cancer patients to receive treatment far more locally. The Isle of Wight is an island two miles off the south coast of England with a population just under 150,000. Due to the short shelf-life of most chemotherapy drugs, medicines are either rushed onto the island or patients take the ferry to the mainland.

The UK's Royal Mail wants to set up as many as 50 drone routes over the next three years to make deliveries to remote communities. The plan, which requires approval from the Civil Aviation Authority, would see the service secure up to 200 of the autonomous devices from logistics drone company Windracers. The Royal Mail said the first communities to benefit would be the Isles of Scilly (off the coast of Cornwall in south-west England) and the Scottish islands of Shetland, Orkney and the Hebrides. Test flights started last year. In the most recent one, held in April, the service was able to use a UAV to deliver mail to Unst, Britain's most northerly inhabited island, from Tingwall Airport on Shetland's largest island.

Royal Mail is building a fleet of 500 drones to carry mail to remote communities all over the UK, including the Isles of Scilly and the Hebrides. The postal service, which has already conducted successful trials over Scotland and Cornwall, will create more than 50 new postal drone routes over the next three years as part of a new partnership with London company Windracers. Drones, or UAVs (uncrewed aerial vehicles), can help reduce carbon emissions and improve the reliability of island mail services, Royal Mail claims. They offer an alternative to currently-used delivery methods that can be affected by bad weather – ferries, conventional aircraft and land-based deliveries. They can also take off from any flat surface (sand, grass or tarmac) providing it is long enough.

It's not just online and big-box retailers that are exploring deliveries by drone. Following in the footsteps of the Swiss Post, the UK's Royal Mail is the latest postal service to trial drone flights. The company has announced a landmark project to deliver packages -- including personal protective equipment, COVID testing kits and assorted mail -- to a UK island using an autonomous Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV). As part of the government-backed project, a large drone will take off from the mainland and fly to the Scilly Isles (a remote archipelago off the Cornish coast in southwest England). The twin-engine UAV can carry up to 100kg of mail of all shapes and sizes, which the Royal Mail said is equivalent to a typical delivery round.

If you receive post in London this month, there's a good chance it arrived to your door via an electric postal truck. Royal Mail is trialling nine British-made fully electric commercial vehicles this month, transporting packages between mail and distribution centres in the capital. The firm hopes that the trial will increase Royal Mail's efficiency, and reduce vehicle emissions. While the trucks will have human drivers, they are'autonomous-ready', which suggests that Royal Mail deliveries could one day be made by driverless vehicles. However, Royal Mail says it has'no current plans' to roll out the technology.

A couple have been told to restrain their cat or face having their mail deliveries suspended. Matthew Sampson was notified by Royal Mail last week of a "potential hazard" at his home in South Gloucestershire which was "affecting deliveries". According to Royal Mail, Bella the cat is a "threat" to staff and has been putting "fingers at risk of injury". But owner Matthew Sampson, said he was "shocked" by the notice as he has "never seen her get aggressive". In the letter, Royal Mail states it has been "experiencing difficulties in delivering mail" to Mr Sampson's address in Patchway "because of the actions of a cat". It said the couple's postman had reported that when he pushes mail through their letterbox their cat "snatches the mail and put his fingers at risk of injury".