Royal Mail could axe Saturday postal deliveries after £319m loss

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Royal Mail may very well be allowed to scrap Saturday postal deliveries as a part of a overview anticipated to avoid wasting the corporate tons of of thousands and thousands of kilos.

Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, will publish a overview subsequent week outlining choices on how Royal Mail can “evolve to extra intently meet client wants”.

The transfer might save the postal service between £125m and £225m a 12 months in a call to be made between parliament and the corporate, Ofcom stated.

An Ofcom spokesperson stated: “We shall be inviting views on this, not consulting on particular proposals. It could in the end be for the UK authorities and parliament to find out whether or not any adjustments are wanted to the minimal necessities of the common service.”

It comes after Royal Mail posted a £319m loss for the primary half of this monetary 12 months and referred to as for a discount in postal deliveries to simply 5 days every week between Monday and Friday.

The service blamed a requirment to ship letters six days every week for rising stamp costs as inflicting the rise in day by day prices.

Final summer time the federal government denied its request to cease delivering publish on Saturdays – a transfer which might have wanted approval by MPs.

Asserting the overview, Ofcom stated: “The previous couple of years have demonstrated the significance of postal providers, however the way in which folks use them is altering, and we anticipate these tendencies to proceed.”

It added that the variety of letters despatched and obtained had declined 46 per cent over the past decade, as folks and companies moved to digital alternate options. With the decline within the variety of letters delivered every day it stated “the price of supply is growing”.

Martin Seidenberg, the chief govt of Royal Mail’s house owners, Worldwide Distribution Providers, stated in its buying and selling assertion this week: “With Ofcom as a consequence of publish choices for the way forward for the common service imminently, now could be the time for pressing motion.

“We’re doing all we will to remodel, however it’s merely not sustainable to take care of a supply community constructed for 20 billion letters after we are actually solely delivering 7 billion.”