Tag: Royal Mail

Royal Mail has embarked on a wholesale clear-out of its property portfolio. The move is part of the group’s attempt to become more commercial in the wake of the opening up of the postal market to competition earlier this year.

It is looking to dispose of 130 of its disused post offices, sub post offices and delivery centres that are loss making. It will also transfer ownership of a further 180 properties to a commercial buyer.

The move comes after Royal Mail executives revealed that a commercially viable postal network would comprise just 4,000 post offices, compared with the current 14,500.

Royal Mail said the 310 properties represented only 2.9 per cent of its total operating space and that it intended to lease back any property that it still required.

The funds raised from the disposal will be used to modernise Royal Mail’s facilities and equipment. The company expects to generate cost savings in the region of pounds 5m.

Postcomm, the independent regulator for postal services, today imposed a financial penalty of GBP 9.62 million on Royal Mail for breaching its licence by failing to properly protect the mail in its care.

The penalty follows a review of Royal Mail’s “mail integrity procedures”, during which Postcomm found that some important features of Royal Mail’s procedures were not being applied across the business.

The penalty was first proposed on 10 February 2006, when Postcomm published a consultation document proposing an amount of GBP 11.38 million. After taking account of representations from Royal Mail and other respondents, Postcomm published its proposal to vary the penalty to GBP 9.62 million on 16 June.

Following consideration of further representations received, Postcomm has confirmed that figure and has today published the penalty notice.

From yesterday, post is no longer charged purely on the basis of weight – the size of a letter or parcel also has to be taken into account.

It was billed as one of the biggest changes to the postal service in recent years.

But within a day of the new sizing system being introduced by the Post Office, customers discovered easy ways to save money. Sending multiple items in separate envelopes can result in significant savings.

Folding an A4 letter in half before it is priced at the post office counter creates a saving of more than 25 per cent.

Sending goods such as CDs in the smallest envelope possible can also bring savings.

The discoveries will encourage businesses which send out hundreds of letters and small parcels every day to review their postal strategy, with the potential to save thousands of pounds.

Placing two paperback books in an A4 envelope results in a charge of Pounds 2.20 but when the books are put in separate small envelopes each one costs only 90p, a saving of 40p.

The extra envelope, however, creates extra sorting and delivery work for the Royal Mail, which is facing opposition from rival companies.

Placing an A4 letter in an A4 envelope costs 44p because it is classed as a “large letter”.

But when the same letter is folded in half and put it in an A5 envelope, the charge is 32p because it is classed as just a “letter”.

THE attitude in Londonderry to yesterday’s newly-introduced mail pricing system was a mixture of confusion and frustrating countdown.

While some customers outside the main Post Office in Custom House Street and the Carlisle Road Post Office predicted confusion, others said it would take a few months ” possibly during the run-up to Christmas ” to feel the full impact of the biggest shake-up the postal system has seen in 165 years.
Janice Tracey, CEO of Londonderry Chamber of Commerce, claimed yesterday it is possible to minimise the impact of the new postage pricing system for all business and residential post.

“From now, businesses will have to pay more attention to the size and shape of post than to the weight in order to avoid being penalised by the changes,’ she said.