POSTAL union bosses and Royal Mail chiefs were due to hold talks this afternoon amid a growing row over the scheduled free delivery of The Sun newspaper in St Helens.

Arrangements had been made for postmen and women to deliver 22 million free copies of the tabloid’s World Cup edition around England today and on Friday.

But the publication will not be delivered to large parts of Merseyside where strong feelings of resentment are still held towards the newspaper due to its coverage of the Hillsborough tragedy 25 years ago.

Postal workers in Skelmersdale, West Lancashire had threatened to strike if they were told to deliver free copies of the newspaper.

On Tuesday the Communications Workers Union initially said that there had been no protests from workers in St Helens over delivering the publication.

But on Wednesday morning the position appeared to shift.

In a dramatic about turn 100 postmen and women met on Wednesday morning outside the St Helens delivery office gates and voted unanimously not to deliver The Sun, one postman, who asked not be named, told the Star.

He said every one of the postal workers who met for a show of hands gathering voted to refuse to deliver it.

Carl Webb, North West regional manager of the CWU said: “There was a meeting of the staff who raised concerns about delivering the publication.

“There are talks taking place with union reps in regards to this in line with the agreement that anyone with individual concerns can raise them.”

The Royal Mail on Tuesday said that the exclusion would only apply to addresses within the Liverpool postcode area.

However, yesterday a Royal Mail spokesman told the Star: “If people have strong objections we are looking at them individually.”