The Royal Mail has launched a search for the owner of a set of traffic lights sent in the post.

　　The lights were in a box covered in brown paper, but did not have the recipient's name or address.

　　It is one of the more unusual items to turn up at the Royal Mail's National Return Letter Centre in Belfast.

　　The package arrived in the spring but the company says they have been waiting ever since for the owner to come forward.

　　Alison White, Royal Mail's head of small business and consumer, said: "So far we have not received any calls from anyone who is waiting to have a set of traffic lights - perhaps they are stuck in traffic."

　　Undeliverable mail accounts for 322 million items a year. About 250 million of these bear a return address but the remainder are sent to the return letter centre.

　　Among the other unexpected items staff have found recently have been live mice and scorpions.