Post Office rivals free to seek bulk work
PRIVATE sector and foreign postal organisations will today be free to apply for a long-term licence to deliver bulk mail in the UK, despite efforts by the Post Office to hold on to its monopoly.
The sweeping liberalisation of the postal market begins just days after the postal regulator, Postcomm, bowed to pressure from ministers, cross-party MPs and unions to postpone for a year its original plan to open postal services to full competition from April 2006.
Hays DX, UK Mail, a subsidiary of Business Post, TPG, operator of the Dutch postal service, and Deutsche Post, the German national postal group, yesterday confirmed that they would seek licences to deliver bulk mail from January next year.
