Further threat to Post Offices

Written by Peter Black and published in Seaside News May 2007 on Thu 10th May 2007

Royal Mail have applied to industry regulator Postcomm to introduce zonal pricing, with the intention of charging large mailers more for delivery in rural and less populated areas. If approved, these plans would see an increase in prices charged for business mail delivery in Greater London and rural/ less populated areas

I believe in a universal delivery charge system, and have real concerns about the impact these plans could have on local business and their customers. Businesses are bound to want to pass this additional cost on to the consumer, so anyone ordering a product for delivery or who has a magazine or newspaper subscription is going to pay more because they live in a rural area - that's a cost some people can ill-afford.

It could also have a negative impact on our local economy, in terms of business-to-business delivery - a company is not going to want to have an outlet in a rural area if they know that getting post to them is going to cost them more. I hope that when Postcomm consider these proposals, they fully assess the impact on rural areas. This must not turn out to be a further blow to postal services.