Ofcom to produce potential options for the future of the universal postal service

Language & Geographical Communities British Isles
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From the Ofcom website

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/news-centre/2023/ofcom-to-produce-potential-options-for-the-future-of-the-universal-postal-service?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Ofcom%20to%20produce%20potential%20options%20for%20the%20future%20of%20the%20universal%20postal%20service&utm_content=Ofcom%20to%20produce%20potential%20options%20for%20the%20future%20of%20the%20universal%20postal%20service+CID_76114080c2aeffd51da71cff7d80f7ac&utm_source=updates&utm_term=news%20centre

Looks like the Holy Grail from Royal Mail’s perspective will be an end to Saturday letter deliveries enshrined in law.

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Yeah, they’ve dressed it up with nice language, but I’m sure their review will result in less service for customers & what’s left will be more expensive & likely fewer postal workers with pay cuts sadly.

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They should go further IMO, the universal service obligation should be DRAMATICALLY reduced to just a couple of deliveries a week in the far-flung reaches of ruralistan. There are hardly any letters that need to be delivered within a day. You literally never get a letter that says things like “come to hospital tomorrow to have your troublesome sphincter upgraded” or “you need to pay your toucan insurance TODAY”.

Here in South London deliveries of letters and postcards already seem to only come once or twice a week anyway.

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Don’t show this to the German Post Office, they might get some nasty new ideas here.

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There’s really no point to a universal service obligation if Royal Mail aren’t actually held to meeting it. If you just look at the messages on this forum you’ll see 1st Class delivery taking weeks, and that isn’t exceptionally rare. I was getting Christmas cards in February.

If the universal service obligation was reduced to 3 days a week, but you were guaranteed for your post to arrive within the advertised delivery times on one of those days, then that would be fine.

In reality, they’ll remove the Saturday obligation and maybe some Highlands and Islands postcodes.

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I’m still suffering with at least a two week lead time on UK mail from what I am able to date from source :disappointed:

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A few weeks ago I mailed a German official card with some UK cards for tags / RRs on Second Class stamps. The German card arrived first.

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Yes, it would appear our collections still run to time, and mail gets through the sorting office, but local postpeople are incredibly short staffed where I am.
Every now and then I have the opportunity for comparison; posted on Monday and caught the collection, Cardiff on Wednesday, Southampton Thursday and me one week later :face_with_monocle:

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It depends on where you are.

A coupla weeks ago my sister sent postcards from Orkney, 2nd class, to my parents on the south coast and to me in Croydon. My parents got their card the next day. Mine took 11 days.

Here in Croydon we currently get one delivery every fortnight. The worst thing about this is that I have almost run out of stamps and so if my delivery from Philatelink doesn’t arrive quickly people might get cards from me with the ghastly barcode stamps that I can get in the supermarket!

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Sunday Times investigation showing that Royal Mail focus on parcels over letters.

There are a few cleverly worded statements in this article including this non-denial.

It noted that Ofcom, the regulator, “did not identify any suggestion that senior management had directed the prioritisation of parcels”.

Also interesting to see that fewer people are buying first class stamps because it makes no difference to delivery times.

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