Rugby Cement signed a complete supply chain contract with TNT Logistics last week, 15 months after TNT got actively involved in Rugby’s transport needs on a non-contracted basis.
The contract — for an undisclosed period — covers in-bound raw materials and delivery of finished products to customers from Rugby’s five manufacturing sites.
THE Prime Minister defended sweeping changes to the Post Office network yesterday that could lead to 3,000 branch closures and thousands of staff losing their jobs.
He told the House of Commons that the Post Office network, which has more than 17,500 branches, was “not sustainable” without the changes that will be smoothed over with a Pounds 270 million government grant to refurbish branches or pay compensation where branches are closed.
Read MoreConsignia, the loss-making postal services group, is to reactivate plans to raise the price of first and second-class stamps by a penny in an effort to offset an expected £750m hit on its operating profits from open competition.
The state-owned group, which yesterday confirmed plans to close up to 3,000 urban post offices, will warn its new regulator tomorrow that its plans to effectively liberalise the postal market by 2004 will knock £250m off its annual operating profits.
CONSUMER GROUPS reacted angrily yesterday after the postal group Consignia confirmed plans to close up to 3,000 urban post offices as part of a cost-cutting drive.
The closures, equivalent to a third of the urban network, will be accompanied by a pounds 200m government-funded compensation package.
Alan Barrie, executive director of Post Office Ltd, defended the cutbacks on the grounds that the 17,500-strong branch network was losing pounds 100m a year and would face even greater difficulties when the payment of social security benefits is switched from post offices direct into bank accounts next year. The move will reduce revenues by 40 per cent or pounds 400m.
Consignia operates the UK’s largest road vehicle fleet of 40,000 vehicles as well as overnight rail and air networks moving some 81 million letters a day.
The new distribution network will use air and road elements in a discrete overnight network based on the ‘hub and spoke’ model. Bulk mail services will use rail transport for Royal Mail’s Mailsort and Presstrearn products and Second Class items. In total, more mail will be transported by rail, but on a simpler timetable using fewer trains, Most overnight items will be moved away from rail transport as a direct result of the continuing uncertainty about future performance levels.
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