Bumper Christmas for Warrington’s Royal Mail superhub

Based close to the M62 at Omega, Royal Mail opened the Warrington site – which is the size four and a half football pitches – in June 2022, creating hundreds of jobs.

And along with its sister hub in Daventry, Northamptonshire, the state-of-the-art hubs processed more than 75 million parcels during the festive season.

This was up 23 per cent year-on-year, according to International Distribution Services.

The owner of Royal Mail said it remains on track to return to annual profit after the Christmas parcel boost, as its £3.6billion takeover by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky nears completion.

International Distribution Services said Royal Mail delivered more than 99 per cent of items that were posted on or before the recommended cut-off date in time for Christmas.

It saw revenues lift 2.4 per cent across Royal Mail in the three months to the end of December, with sales of parcels up 3.2 per cent and a 1.4 per cent rise for letters.

The group said addressed letters continued to fall by volume, down seven per cent, but that this was offset by stamp price rises.

Parcel sales across the UK by volume remained unchanged, at 334 million, but revenues rose 2.5 per cent to £1.02billion as prices rose, while the division was boosted by a better performance internationally, where revenues jumped 6.6 per cent to £227million.

The performance has kept the group on course to return to adjusted operating profit, before voluntary redundancy costs, in 2024-25 this fiscal year ‘despite the difficult market environment’, IDS said.

Martin Seidenberg, chief executive of IDS, said: “At Royal Mail, we have made more progress to adapt to customer demand.

“Successful execution of our union agreements is bringing increased operational flexibility, which together with increased automation, and thousands of new vehicles, is leading to improved reliability.”

He added: “While the market backdrop remains difficult, we are focused on strategic delivery and mitigation of inflationary pressures.”

The group warned in November that it was facing a £120million hit from the incoming national insurance tax hike, and that it could not rule out job cuts or price hikes to offset the blow.

Its latest update showed that total group revenue rose 0.8 per cent to £3.6billion.

Royal Mail cheered a strong performance from its UK tracked parcel offering, with packages by volume up 19 per cent to 188 million.