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

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Royal Mail could possibly be allowed to scrap Saturday postal deliveries as a part of a evaluation anticipated to save lots of the corporate a whole bunch of hundreds of 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 intently meet shopper wants”.

The transfer might 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 in the end be for the UK authorities and parliament to find out whether or not any modifications 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 per week between Monday and Friday.

The service blamed a requirment to ship letters six days per 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 put up on Saturdays – a transfer which might have wanted approval by MPs.

Asserting the evaluation, Ofcom stated: “The previous couple of years have demonstrated the significance of postal providers, however the best way individuals 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 over the past decade, as individuals and companies moved to digital options. With the decline within the variety of letters delivered every day it stated “the price of supply is rising”.

Martin Seidenberg, the chief govt of Royal Mail’s house owners, Worldwide Distribution Companies, stated in its buying and selling assertion this week: “With Ofcom attributable to publish choices for the way forward for the common service imminently, now’s 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 20bn letters after we at the moment are solely delivering 7bn.”