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Around 1,800 jobs are at risk after postal giant Whistl suddenly suspended door-to-door deliveries.

Shocked staff, many on zero hours contracts, only found out when they turned up for work this morning.

Royal Mail has been forced to step in to take over Whistl’s deliveries - without being given any notice, say insiders.

The move is a massive blow Whistl, formally known as TNT Post, which had been busy rolling out its “end to end” service.

The company, part of Dutch postal giant PostNL, already has a string of big contracts to collect and sort “bulk” mail from large companies and organsations.

But, in a major challenge to Royal Mail, it has started delivering the “final mile” to people’s homes too.

The E2E service began in West London, and had been extended to parts of Manchester and Liverpool.

But the future of the venture was thrown into doubt after Whistl’s surprise decision to suspend it, pending a review.

The move was triggered LDC, the private equity arm of taxpayer saved Lloyds, deciding not to invest in the roll-out.

Whistl’s end-to-end operation has proved controversial, with claims about items not being delivered properly.

Under its plans, it only delivers every other day, rather than Royal Mail’s daily service.

Among those using Whistl’s end to end option are Tesco, Barclays and Lloyds.

No other parts of Whistl’s UK operations are affected.

Whistl said in a statement: “Following the announcement from LDC that it would not proceed with the proposed investment to fund further rollout of E2E we have now commenced an extensive review of the viability and potential for the rollout of an e2e postal delivery service in the UK.

“To stem the losses from the operations we have taken the difficult decision to suspend the current E2E service during the review process and all mail will now be delivered through our long-standing downstream access service until we have concluded the review.

“As part of this extensive review, we will begin consultations with the relevant employees who are affected by the suspension of the E2E service, and with their union representatives, with a view to identifying and exploring viable proposals to secure the continuation of this service.

Graham Hamand, North West Branch Secretary for the Community union, slammed Whistl for not given workers any notice.

“They only found out when they turned up for work this morning.” he said. “Everyone is in shock at the moment.”

Documents seen by the Mirror say staff are not being made redundant and that they will be paid for the first day and “as a gesture of goodwill you will be paid your day rate each day this week.”

Around 1,800 staff are affected.

Royal Mail confirmed it had taken on Whistl’s “final mile” deliveries in London, Manchester and Liverpool.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: “As the Universal Service provider Royal Mail is ready to accept the additional volumes into our network and we will ensure delivery meets our usual high standard of service.

“We are liaising with Whistl to make certain customers aren’t impacted in any way.”

Whistl already accounts for one in four letters Royal Mail deliveries because of its big contracts.

But sources say, in the areas where it had started end to end deliveries, it only accounts for around one in seven items.