Swindon - Sorting jobs 'safe' despite

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HUGE financial losses at Royal Mail are unlikely to affect jobs at the sorting office in Swindon following large investment.

Royal Mail bosses revealed losses of £120 million yesterday following a large drop in the number of people sending post.

The announcement also stated that Royal Mail has plans to close a further 16 mail centres across the country in the next five years in a bid to save money putting jobs at the Swindon sorting office in doubt.

Moya Greene, chief executive of Royal Mail, said: “We need to put Royal Mail and our ability to deliver on a sound, stable and sustainable footing.

“We have a clear plan in place to deal with our difficult business environment.

“We need to reduce our costs faster than the decline in revenues from our core letters business.

“The pace of change in our mail centres will continue.

“We expect that around half of the mail centres could close by 2016/17.

“The plan is very challenging but we are determined to achieve it.”

However, the cuts though are unlikely to affect the sorting office in Dorcan following a large investment in the centre three years ago.

In 2008, Royal Mail chose Swindon to have the largest, state-of-the-art mail centre in the country and invested £20m in the process.

The town gained 600 new jobs at the expense of 400 jobs in Reading and Oxford and now has nearly 1,000 employees working at the sorting offices.

Speaking at the time of the investment a Royal Mail spokesman said: “Some £20m is being invested in this project and once complete, the new Thames Valley Mail Centre at Swindon will be the largest, state-of-the-art mail centre in the country.

“We believe that moving work from Oxford to our extended facility in Swindon, which will be equipped with the latest technologies, will enable us to address an urgent need to improve the reliability of the mail services for our customers.

“Our continued priority will be to fully support our people at all sites.”