Dunne: Royal Mail pricing proposals set to hit rural areas the hardest

Philip Dunne, MP for Ludlow, today criticized Royal Mail’s plans to charge large postal customers higher prices for delivering bulk mail in rural areas.

It has been calculated that 80 pct of households and 90 pct of postcode sectors in the Ludlow constituency are in the area Royal Mail considers the most rural. These areas will attract the biggest surcharges.

Royal Mail’s proposals are to increase prices by over 10.2 pct for bulk mail deliveries in rural areas while prices in urban areas rise by only pct%.

The rural surcharge proposals for large mailings raise damaging implications for rural postal services and rural communities:

– Mail volumes going to rural areas will decrease and the unit costs of deliveries will increase;
– This in turn will put pressure on Royal Mail to reduce services in rural areas in the future;
– Rural post offices involved with mail delivery will see a declining volume of mail handled placing them in even greater jeopardy and;
– Significant additional costs will be placed on rural business and organizations.