Tag: Mail Services

The decision to end the Royal Mail’s 350-year-old monopoly on delivering letters from next January has raised the prospect of rival firms installing different coloured post boxes alongside the traditional red ones.

Customers would then have to choose whether to put their card or letter into a red, yellow or possibly blue pillar box, depending how quickly they wanted it delivered and how much they had paid for a stamp.

But despite callers to radio phone-in programmes today being asked if they would be prepared to ditch the UK’s 115,000 Royal Mail boxes and entrust letters to a private firm, the reality is likely to be much different.

Royal Mail threw its support behind the UK regulator’s decision to open the postal service market to competition in January next year, 15 months ahead of schedule. ‘We’re ready,’ said Royal Mail chief executive Adam Crozier. ‘We recognise that the regulator is getting on with his job, and welcome faster competition as long as it comes without unfair restrictions on Royal Mail,’ he added. Postcomm’s decision, which was ahead of the original timetable of April 2007, will end Royal Mail’s over 350-year monopoly of the UK market. The decision means that from 2006, licensed companies other than Royal Mail will be able to collect, transport and deliver letters and charge customers for the service. Crozier said what it now wants to find out is how the transition to full competition will be carried out.

‘Royal Mail wants to be able to compete fully and fairly from the start. We’re determined to earn business in the new market so that we can continue to finance the one-price-goes-anywhere universal service – which remains at the heart of what we do. We can only do this if the handcuffs come off,’ he said.