The cost of sending a letter to or from the Isle of Wight is about to go up again, as Royal Mail announces it is to increase the cost of 1st and 2nd Class stamps. From 2nd April 2024, a 1st Class stamp will set you back £1.35 – an increase of 10p. Whilst a 2nd Class stamp will soon be priced at 85p, also a 10p increase. It will be the 4th price increase to hit consumers in just 2 years. Prior to April 2022, a 1st Class stamp was just 85p. Soon, Royal Mail could reduce the number of days it delivers letters to 5 or just 3 days a week. It seems likely that Saturday deliveries for letters will be dropped. Nick Landon, chief commercial officer at Royal Mail, has said:
“We always consider price changes very carefully but we face a situation where letter volumes have reduced dramatically over recent years while costs have increased.
“It is no longer sustainable to maintain a network built for 20 billion letters when we are now only delivering seven billion. As a result of letter volume decline, our posties now have to walk more than three times as far to deliver the same number of letters as before, increasing the delivery costs per letter.”
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If the price continues to rise the demand for the service will continue to decrease can’t they see that ?
That is what they want, they have already siphoned off the profit making part of sending parcels now they want to reduce letter deliveries as much as possible so they can “justify” changing to a 3 or 4 day letter delivery week
That’s it! I’m moving back to the mainland and I’ll save a fortune on lower cost stamps….
Hardly surprising letter volumes have decreased if you charge that sort of money to send them.
Royal mail are becoming a joke,they put the price of stamps up ,& then they want to reduce delivery days.Then they moan that the number of letters being sent are down.!!!
What a load of lies again from the post office. There is no such thing as first and second class anymore and they should have to drop the first class charge. I have had first class post arrive after second class post, sent from the same place where the first class post was posted first!
And posties are not walking three times as far, they are simply delivering less mail on their routes. Yes, they would have to walk the routes more often to deliver the amount of mail they used to, but they are not walking their routes any more often, in fact they are walking them less if they cut down the number of days that post is delivered!
Dreadful service from a dreadful company.
Presumably the Post Office will increase price of the stamps again when even less people post things because of the price of stamps…. then the Post Office will increase the price of stamps again……..
It took 6 days for a letter to travel from St Mary’s to Binstead. Time it went bust.
And now we know why Royal mail are going downhill….
I feel for the staff taking the flack …
Soon no one will be posting letter’s,….
It makes me laugh that the post has gone to one delivery a day but we still have two class of stamps they should have a single price, bring the first class down and put the second class up to match each other.
That’s ok because as sad as it is at rising costs they will price themselves out because apart from an odd letter or card most people now use on line . Sign of the times unfortunately.
Won’t be long until Amazon take over. We all know how badly the P.O is managed from the top down. Now they are asking us to cover the cost of the massive compensation claims they are currently faced with, plus a lot more. Nope, I don’t do business with companies with such a bad reputation and use other providers instead.
Bye bye letters, hello email!!
Deliberately misleading headline or just bad?
The cost of sending a letter on the Island has increased too then? Not just sending it to and from.
I blame degrees in journalism.
I don’t understand the 3 times as far walk. I see lots of vans dropping off delivery people nearer their rounds. Not so many letters, but surely packages and parcels have increased. I suppose Royal Mail will follow the pony express. Whose bright idea was selling off telecom just as email arrives?
We now pay extortionate 1st class costs for a 3rd class service.
Perhaps the cost of sending letters is one of the reasons the volume of letters sent has dropped but then again RM don’t want letters just lucrative parcels so expect more hikes in price for letters very soon ,.. anther privatisation disaster thanks mrs T your legacy lives on!
What’s a reasonable amount to pay for mail stamps? How else do you think you could get a letter from here to Scotland for £1.25/£1.35. what are our cheaper options? look what else you can get for £1.35. cant even park in Sandown for a hour for that. a bag of crisp can cost this now. a can of coke costs more. or a 1/3 of a cup costa, and that’s to your door. And as far as I know most posties can walk between10 to 13 miles a day. is this a short walk ?
You use Royal Mail. They do not charge any extra for postage to the Isle of Wight. Its a general price increase.
They didn’t publish my comment pointing out the same thing. Must be short of news ideas.