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Royal Mail has come under fire for a rules shake-up with postmasters anxious over the changes. Ofcom has set out a series of options for the future of the Royal Mail – including cutting the number of days Royal Mail deivers letters to just five or maybe even THREE.
David Falkner, the co-founder of Cardology, of the £1.5bn greetings card industry, told the Guardian: “This feels to me a bit like a Beeching cut, it feels panicked.” Heidi Early, the owner of Early Bird Designs, a greetings card and gift shop in Stoke Newington, warned: “Of course letters have declined with email.
“But greetings cards are still very much a paper-based business, it’s a really strong economy. It’s growing, my business is thriving and it relies on a reliable and affordable postal service. My customers are still sending cards but I’m getting comments every day about how unreliable the postal service is and how expensive it’s become in relation to the cost of a greetings card.”
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Woodmansterne Publications managing director Seth Woodmansterne warned: “Royal Mail is failing on a daily basis currently, every day that it does not deliver is eroding public confidence. I would like to see something happen urgently.”
“If the unions cannot be brought on side, then we run a danger that we accept a specification that is lower but still get a worse service, people are disappointed, the volume declines and the costs go up,” said Jon Wilkins, a director of UKMail.
Royal Mail director of corporate affairs, Jenny Hall, said: “This is not about a big change to job cuts exercise. When you’re a fundamentally loss-making business, your ability to invest in some of those things that are ultimately better for customers is quite limited, so this for us is also about a platform for growth and a platform to sustain as many jobs.”
