Royal Mail: Why we're forced to quit Shropshire

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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A Royal Mail spokesman explains why the company feels it has no choice but to close Shropshire’s only sorting office, in Shrewsbury.

Royal Mail is a key part of the UK’s economic and social infrastructure. Our postmen and women in Shropshire and across the UK perform a vital and trusted role for every community. We are proud to sort, process and deliver letters for one price, anywhere in the UK, six days a week.

To safeguard the future of the business, we need financial stability and we need to respond to the huge growth in electronic communications and the resulting decline in overall mail volumes. We are now delivering 58 million items a day, compared to 84 million items a day six years ago.

In Shropshire and Mid Wales, mail volumes of items posted to addresses in the region, from other parts of the country, have fallen over 24.3 per cent during the last six years, while mail volumes of items posted to addresses outside the region have fallen by 35 per cent in the same period.

This is why we have embarked on our own self-help programme. We are modernising our operations as fast as we can, taking out costs and improving our financial performance.

As part of this, we have just announced our formal proposal to relocate our processing operations from Shrewsbury to other mail centre sites. This proposal follows a review of our processing operations in Shrewsbury that began in February 2012 and has involved more than five months of consultation with our employees and unions, the CWU and Unite CMA.

This consultation will now continue before a final decision is expected to be reached by the end of the year. This review is being conducted on the basis of the Business Transformation 2010 and Beyond agreement, which is the national agreement between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union for modernising the business. This agreement was endorsed by postmen and women in a national ballot in April 2010.

We are fully aware that any change to our mail centre operation in Shrewsbury will, unfortunately, impact on some colleagues. There are around 240 staff currently working at Shrewsbury mail centre. Whilst it is too early to say what the exact impact on these people will be as this depends on the final outcome of the consultation with our unions and our people, our aim is to minimise any job reductions.

Our intention is to make changes without compulsory redundancies. By asking people to demonstrate reasonable flexibility, we expect to be able to find roles for everyone who wants to continue to work for Royal Mail.

We will be working very closely with the CWU and Unite CMA to support our people to achieve this aim during what will, inevitably, be a period of uncertainty.

We are, however, confident that transferring our operations from Shrewsbury to other sites will not impact adversely on our operations.

We have extensive experience of transferring large-scale operations to other sites. This has already happened in the South East, the Midlands, North East and North West. Our detailed planning and preparation has ensured this has not had a detrimental impact on the quality of service which is independently monitored by our regulator, Ofcom.

Modernisation, however, is absolutely essential so that we can meet customers’ expectations of a world class postal service, ensure we operate efficiently and provide a great quality of service in a smaller and radically changing market.

This review is part of the ongoing modernisation and investment in our business which we consider vital in order to put Royal Mail on a sound, secure and sustainable footing for the future.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Star Comment: A backward step for the mail service

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There is a simple way of making a judgment about the plans to close the sorting office in Shrewsbury.

And that is to ask this question: What good will come of it?

No good will come of it at all if the 160-plus Shropshire workers would lose their jobs, as the union claims.

As for the public in terms of the service that they get, the benefits look elusive. If anything, it is reasonable to suppose that killing off the sorting office and with it all the local knowledge and expertise of the staff who work there can only make things go downhill and lead to more misdirected and delayed mail.

Latest figures this week show that in the SY postcode area, which extends from much of Shropshire into Mid Wales and Cheshire, 95.7 per cent of first class mail was delivered the next day. This is significantly better than the national average of just under 93 per cent.

With the closure of the Castle Foregate sorting office, mail for Shropshire and Mid Wales will be sorted in Chester, Wolverhampton, and Cardiff. Imagine that – remote sorters having to deal with mail from our patch with addresses like The Bog and Ruyton-XI-Towns, Llanymynech and Ratlinghope.

Royal Mail says the closure is needed due to “challenges from digital communication, competition, and mail volume decline.”

No mention there then of the duty to provide a service to customers, who now pay very expensive prices for stamps and to post their parcels.

The Communications Workers Union claims there will be a massive impact on postal delivery times. That is a major reason to fight the plan.

But it is also objectionable because it will represent another loss of Shropshire sovereignty, local control, local decision-making, local jobs, and doorstep services - all things this county needs to battle to keep if it is to retain its vitality.

[Lounge Lizard]

"Imagine that – remote sorters having to deal with mail from our patch with addresses like The Bog and Ruyton-XI-Towns, Llanymynech and Ratlinghope." - but that's why Royal Mail had the foresight to introduce Postcodes all those years ago.

[Lincox]

We have extensive experience of transferring large-scale operations to other sites. This has already happened in the South East, the Midlands, North East and North West. Our detailed planning and preparation has ensured this has not had a detrimental impact on the quality of service which is independently monitored by our regulator, Ofcom.

Oh yeah!!

[pav]

58 million Bollocks doesn't mention the average weight has go up by 300%

[Lounge Lizard]

And with deliveries continuing six days a week to all addresses in the county Royal Mail isn't going to "quit Shropshire", it's just going to close a Mail Centre there. Another blunder from the Shropshire Star / Express and Star muppets.

[barbario]

Well,i work in London where we have seen both Nine Elms close,which dealt with the SE and SW codes and also East London Mail Centre.The result of this is that the MCs around London are now buckling.

[Lounge Lizard]

Well,i work in London where we have seen both Nine Elms close,which dealt with the SE and SW codes and also East London Mail Centre.The result of this is that the MCs around London are now buckling.

Just as well then that mail volumes are dropping.