THE Royal Mail has revised earlier advice that those posting letters and cards should not use red envelopes this Christmas.

It had said that the fluorescent orange codes printed on each envelope for scanning machines to register the address cannot be picked up if printed on a red envelope, meaning they had to be sorted manually.

However it has now removed the page of advice from its website.

A Royal Mail spokesman said today: "Customers are welcome to use any form of envelope or ink for their Christmas cards. The only advice we always offer - is to always use the postcode.

“As the universal service provider, Royal Mail is proud to deliver the Christmas post for consumers and businesses.

"Our Intelligent Letter Sorting Machines can process up to 50,000 items an hour.

"Anything the machines are unable to read are almost instantaneously passed through to our data centre where our team of ‘address detectives’ identify the correct address. There is no impact on the delivery timescale for the customer." 

The Royal Mail has recommended a series of last posting dates to ensure people get their cards in time for Christmas – second class is December 18, first class December 20 and special delivery, December 23.