Royal Mail faces multi-million-pound fines unless it dramatically improves two business mail services, it emerged yesterday. The industry regulator Postcomm placed an enforcement order on Royal Mail, requiring it to improve the two services by the end of March or face a fine of around pounds 8m.
Read MoreA £15 million fund to help keep post offices open in England’s most deprived urban areas, was launched by Regeneration Minister Tony McNulty. Up to £50,000 will be available to sub-postmasters to maintain, modernise and expand their branches, as part of the Government’s long-term drive to regenerate impoverished urban communities. The grant can be spent on new retail facilities, such as bakeries or greengrocers, better security, updated IT equipment, or shop alterations.
Read MoreRoyal Mail Group has called for greater flexibility to increase postage stamp prices after warning that it may face extra costs of at least Pounds 1bn over the next three years. Postcomm, the postal regulator, has already agreed to a 1p increase in the price of first class and second class stamps from April to help stem Royal Mail’s Pounds 1.1m-a-day losses, as long as average prices are then frozen until 2006. But Royal Mail claims this could be swamped by a potential Pounds 330m black hole in its pension funds and a further Pounds 280m to cover possible rises in interest payments on government loans.
Read MoreCompetition in postal services took a major step forward today when Postcomm
awarded the first long term licences to Hays Commercial Services Limited and
TPG Post UK Limited. The licences mark the start of wider competition in the
provision of postal services throughout the UK.
The new standard licences, which have a minimum life of seven years, will
come into operation when the first stage of postal competition opens on 1
January 2003.
Postcomm today added tracked business-to-business mail services to the
competitive postal market. Postal operators wishing to provide such services will be able to apply for a licence from Postcomm.
The standard postal licence which will enable competing companies to offer
business mail services in competition with Royal Mail, will come into operation
on 1 January 2003. The licences will cover bulk mail, consolidation services,
and enhanced document exchange services.
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