Royal Mail ‘terminal decline’ risk
BRITAIN is “sleep-walking” towards the loss of six-day-a-week post, greetings card makers have claimed, as Royal Mail lobbies for the axing of Saturday letter deliveries.
The Greeting Card Association (GCA) has written to ministers and the regulator, Ofcom, warning that the “beloved” Royal Mail risked falling into “terminal decline”.
David Falkner, chief executive of Cardology and a leading member of the GCA, warned that customers have “lost faith” in Royal Mail after late deliveries became the norm and said customers are being forced to spend more on firstclass serfvices to ensure safe delivery.
He said: “We took the decision last November to switch all of our deliveries to a tracked service. My conclusion is that this is an attempt by Royal Mail to put Saturday and Sunday delivery into a premium service, enabling them to make supernormal returns on a monopoly service.”
Mr Falkner and the GCA said: “You’ve got a situation where Royal Mail is actively campaigning for a release from this service that they’ve been able to deliver for years and years and years. It’s a company that’s done delivery for nearly 400 years. To believe that they have suddenly forgotten how to do that because of the pandemic just doesn’t stack up. I feel like we’re sleep-walking into losing something that’s really important to people.”
The complaint comes as Royal Mail lobbies ministers and regulators to scrap Saturday letter deliveries.
Martin Seidenberg, the chief executive, said it was “simply not sustainable” to maintain a delivery network built for 20bn letters when the company was only delivering 7bn.
Ofcom is drawing up a consultation paper on reforms to Royal Mail’s obligations, which is expected to be published this week. One potential option may be the axing of Royal Mail’s legal obligation to deliver letters six days a week, effectively ending the Saturday post.
Royal Mail was contacted for comment.
400 Years that the Royal Mail has delivered letters. The company is lobbying to scrap deliveries on a Saturday