Six-day postal deliveries to remote areas facing the axe

RURAL c ommunities could l ose their daily postal deliveries as Royal Mail threatens to axe a key element of the 175year-old service.

The recently privatised company has warned that six-day deliveries could soon end, leaving thousands of Scots families at risk of losing out.

It has written to the industry regulator seeking an investigation into the universal service obligation ( USO), which requires it to provide a mail delivery service to every UK address, six days a week.

Royal Mail is warning this could become unsustainable as rival delivery firms eat into its profits, forcing it to end the USO for the first time since 1839.

Ofcom, the post and communications regulator, is set to look

‘The service is in danger’

into the issue. But the proposals last night provoked outrage among business groups and politicians.

Nationalist postal affairs spokesman Mike Weir MP, said: ‘ The news highlights exactly why the SNP were opposed to the privatisation of Royal Mail.

‘We made it abundantly clear that privatisation posed a real threat to the future of the USO, which is of huge importance to large areas of Scotland.

‘The Tories and Lib Dems dismissed this, claiming the service was safe. These developments show that it is far from safe and when Royal Mail themselves are saying the service is in danger then urgent action is needed.’

Under Royal Mail’s proposals, deliveries in remote areas would be reduced from six days a week, unless customers were prepared to pay more to help maintain Saturday deliveries.

Royal Mail was privatised last September and in May reported profits of £671million, a 12 per cent rise on the previous year.

But it faces competition from several companies in collection and sorting of mail, with Royal Mail controlling the ‘last mile’ of deliveries to doors.

Delivery giant TNT Post has begun setting up centres in cities and plans to deliver to 42 per cent of the population by 2017.

This would require it to cover only 8.5 per cent of the UK’s land mass, since it will deliver in densely populated urban areas where it is cheaper to deliver a large number of letters.

Revenues from urban areas tend to subsidise more expensive rural deliveries, so Royal Mail claims competition from TNT and other ‘direct delivery’ firms in the most profitable

‘Interested in a fast buck’

parts of the country would make it difficult to maintain business in other areas, costing the firm £200million every year.

Ofcom, which is expected to complete a review by the end of 2015, said it would consider the Royal Mail report. A spokesman added: ‘Our current evidence clearly shows that the service is not currently under threat.’

Labour business spokesman Ian Murray criticised privatisation, saying: ‘Clearly, ministers were more interested in making a fast buck than ensuring the postal network is maintained.’

TNT Post said there was no evidence that competition posed a threat to the USO.

A spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses Scotland said: ‘Any threat to the USO would hit our members hard.

‘Many do not have access to bulk mail deals with firms like TNT so rely on Royal Mail.’

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