New proposals by Royal Mail to cut its service will impact letter deliveries across the Isle of Wight.
It has been revealed this week that the current 6-day-a-week service looks set to remain but for First Class letters and parcels only. Under new plans revealed by Royal Mail, Second Class letters and bulk business mail – such as bank statements – will be delivered every other day, between Monday and Friday. It’s likely that, in the near future, letters from big companies will take 3 weekdays to arrive, instead of 2. Islanders may soon only receive post 3 days a week, unless the sender has paid £1.35 for a First Class stamp. Parcel deliveries will continue as they are – up to 7 days a week – and discussions are being held with the NHS to see how important medical letters can be prioritised.
Significant financial losses as a result of a diminishing volume of letters being sent are being blamed for the changes, with £300million of savings being sought. It wasn’t all that long ago that mail was delivered twice a day…
There is some positive news for those sending and receiving post on the Isle of Wight… Royal Mail has stated it intends to maintain its one-price-goes-anywhere service for the whole of the UK, meaning islands won’t be penalised for being more remote.
However, if the changes are approved by regulator Ofcom, job losses could soon hit which will have an impact on the Island’s local economy.
Nick Landon, Chief Customer Officer at Royal Mail, has said:
“In 2004/5, we posted 20 billion letters. By 2022/3, that number had dropped to seven billion. The average address now receives just four letters a week. As a result, Royal Mail is facing huge financial pressure. Last year, we lost £419 million.
“Without urgent reform, there is real risk that the one-price-goes-anywhere Universal Service, the legal requirement for Royal Mail to deliver to the UK’s 32 million addresses six days a week, will not survive. “With reform we would be able to invest in products and services we know you need and want. Services that will help you grow your business or stay connected to your loved ones. If we want to save the Universal Service, we have to change the Universal Service. We’re doing everything we can to transform so that we can serve you better. And now we need Ofcom, the regulator, to do their bit and implement the change”.
Dear Royal Mail, just keep putting up the price of stamps and watch the user numbers fall, it’s almost as if there is some kind of correlation!
What I’m not getting is Post person will still walk from one end of street to the whether a few letters or many. Post office is deliberately trying to run itself into closure, it now costs more for a stamp than a card. This Xmas I sent none in post 5yrs ago I sent 35. Now do email, sure many others the same. Parcel – they are almost twice price of others. Shame Post office wasted £100,000,000 trying to get out of it’s failure with Horizon!.
Post Office and Royal Mail are separate companies so Horizon has no bearing on Royal Mail profitability
Would love to get a post every other day instead of every 2 weeks.
Wow! I know it’s an island, but you’d have thought we’d get the same postal service as the rest of the country. Shame on the Post Office.
Nothing to do with the Post Office it’s about Royal Mail
Lucky if post arrives twice a week as it is, never changed since covid! sooner the royal mail is dissolved the better.
A Pathetic service comes to mind
That’ll be an improvement for us – we only get Mail twice a week as it is!
Mind you, it’s worth complaining – one Mother’s Day card with a 1st class stamp on, took five working days to arrive and I got 8 first class stamps in compensation!!
Royal Mail you should be ashamed of yourselves, this is all your fault, not ours, we rely on you for a service and at the moment we are not getting it. You cannot keep raising the cost of stamps to justify your cause, and what about the on going saga with the Post Office and those poor sub postmasters, that is terrible and you should pay them decent compensation and apologise unreservedly for how you treated them when you knew that the system you were using was faulty. You need to get back to basics and sort it out once and for all.
Lucky if you get post twice a week and it’s hard to run a business when post doesn’t arrive! I personally now don’t use the post office or Royal Mail for anything, private carriers all the time for a better service! I hope all the useless postal workers get laid off as they are useless, has anyone noticed the stupidity of the drivers in the post vans that seem to park on pavements or double yellow lines? they all deserve to lose their jobs!
But the items are being delivered on behalf of HRQ/K, therefore they can park and drive however they please, historically factual. If were to hold up the post you could be jailed
Yes but times of changed and when they could park properly they don’t, I see regularly them park illegally/dangerously then deliver a whole street! Park on pedestrian crossings just plain lazy.
Stan, hope your business goes under, nasty attitude towards the posties. Do you really think the posties get a say in what they deliver. its the likes of your sort that has ruined the postal service. business men with nothing but greed in mind. tell me what business do you run? interested. big bosses / managers/ owners of a business are more than likely putting pressure on them to take more than they have time for. hence the parking, i guess..to increase profit for share owners. Have you spoken to your postie , i have. instead of you all moaning about the poor posties, have any of you contacted any managers or are you just happy to play a victim on IE. .
The Post Office is Absolutely disgusting,
Not just their terrible treatment of those poor post master’s, but terrible pot luck service and terrible prices.
Although my Post Lady is So hard working, Rain,Sleet or Snow still with a smile.
Thank You Nikki
Get the dinosaurs to use email and then the NHS won’t have to send letters by snail mail – easy!
Get yourself educated, more like.
They must of trialled it already on the Island, I suggest that the whole Post office and parcel force are renationalised like many of our other service industries. Energy, Water. Railways. etc etc.
They are all privately run bud, what country do you live in?
They get a pay rise, put prices up and cut the service, what planet are they on
what does a postie earn?
Significant financial losses being blamed, or are they thinking of keeping the bosses and share holders happy? £300million of savings is a hell of a lot of bonuses.
The postal service is now a disgrace, over the past few years
prices keep going up, but the service is getting worse.
It is a right for everyone to have mail delivery until now, our future is going backwards not future., I would like to know if the taxes are reduced to the less service
Higher costs , = Less Service
That will help the council who take over a week from writing a letter, to it entering the mail system. Its always the time sensitive letters that demand you reply or face consequences, anybody else notice how it’s rigged?
Postage has gone up because more and more are e mailing or faxing. I guess they need to accrue their losses but it’s a vicious circle.
I only use the post now when an emergency and use e mail more and more . Not because I want too but because of the cost of mail…. Technology……has a lot to answer for
Faxing that died years ago
All my post arrived in bulk once a week.
If anyone is paying for a first class stamp don’t bother. Just put a second class stamp on and understand it wont arrive even then when its supposed to.
We should claim the price back of first class letters when they don’t arrive on time.
Tory greed. Sold it at a low price, all the people in the know got early access (before the people) to buy the shares cheap then sold after public access to the shares. And now the post office has no support from government, it’s collapsing. But that is ok, as long as the city made their pound of flesh. More of the tax payers assets funnelled offshore. Torys are robbing the British people blind. It’s all offshore, never getting that back.
I have had 1st Class stamped letters take 3 days to arrive so this is a load of BS
It’s bad enough someone sent a letter 3 weeks and it still not here 1st class and £50 has gone missing
After the Horizon Fujitsu scandal we shouldn’t be using royal mail.
Think that was the Post Office. Not using Royal Mail will only expedite their desire to abandon letters entirely.
Two separate entities. Post Office runs the counters, Royal mail is post and parcels. The fact is the parcels are more lucrative (and delivered by postmen and women) and RM would like to compete with Evri/DHL etc so ordinary post is less cost effective and deliberately being nobbled in order to become just a parcels service.
we don’t hardly get any post anyway and when we do it’s late and have missed appointments
I only get mail delivered twice a week anyway!
Haven’t used the mail in many years, like now and here it’s easier, quicker and cheaper electronically
Delivery priorities are now tracked and timed letters and parcels. The rest gets rolled daily because RM wants to cut operational costs and limit hours worked, and the parcels are the most lucrative. No postie wants this system, but that’s what privatisation gets you. Profits over service, every time.