Post assessing plans to alter UK deliveries

Royal Mail chief customer officer Nick Landon has sent an open letter to customers, detailing the proposed changes to the UK service.

‘All non-first class letter deliveries – second class and bulk business mail often used for letters such as bills and statements – would move to every other weekday,’ he wrote.

‘And we would like to add tracking to Universal Service parcels to reflect customer demand.

‘We know how important it is to receive NHS letters, so we are also working with the NHS to explore options that could provide more reliability for time-sensitive medical letters.’

Royal Mail currently delivers to 32m. addresses six days a week.

But last year the business lost £419m., with the numbers of letters dropping from 20 billion to seven billion over the last 18 years.

The average UK address now receives just four letters a week.

The proposals would keep a one-price-goes-anywhere UK service and first class post deliveries six days a week.

A Guernsey Post spokeswoman said it was looking at the proposals.

‘We recognise the financial challenges faced by Royal Mail, the need for reform of their business and the USO,’ she said.

‘Guernsey Post is in the process of reviewing the proposals published this week to understand in more detail the impact of services to and from the Bailiwick of Guernsey.’

Earlier this year Ofcom launched a review to modernise Royal Mail, in a bid to make it more efficient and improve its service levels.

At that time, Guernsey Post CEO Boley Smillie warned that any changes to postal deliveries in the UK could have a significant impact on local services.

Guernsey makes parcel deliveries six days a week and letter deliveries five days a week.