Royal Mail may 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 evaluation anticipated to avoid wasting the corporate tons of of thousands and thousands of kilos.

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

The transfer may save the postal service between £125m and £225m a yr 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 finally 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 yr and referred to as for a discount in postal deliveries to only 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 every day prices.

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

Saying the evaluation, Ofcom stated: “The previous few years have demonstrated the significance of postal companies, however the way in which folks use them is altering, and we count on these developments to proceed.”

It added that the variety of letters despatched and acquired had declined 46 per cent during the last decade, as folks and companies moved to digital 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 homeowners, Worldwide Distribution Companies, stated in its buying and selling assertion this week: “With Ofcom because of publish choices for the way forward for the common service imminently, now’s the time for pressing motion.

“We’re doing all we are able to to remodel, however it’s merely not sustainable to keep up a supply community constructed for 20 billion letters after we at the moment are solely delivering 7 billion.”