Sunday post collections axed

[Lovin Posties]

Tom McGhie, Financial Mail
9 September 2007

After 17 years, Royal Mail is to stop all Sunday and Bank Holiday collections from October 28, blaming soaring losses.

Stickers will this weekend be placed on all of the 18,000 boxes that provide Sunday collections stating that the service is about to end.
About 1,500 postal workers will now get Sundays off. But even after the Sunday pick-ups have stopped, letter boxes will be monitored to ensure that letters do not spill out on to the pavement. 'If we find any boxes that are overflowing, we will empty them,' said a Royal Mail spokesman.

The vast majority of Royal Mail's 115,000 letter boxes have never had a Sunday collection, which is estimated to account for less than one per cent of all the mail posted each week. The small volumes mean it costs four times as much to handle this post than items collected on other days.

The spokesman said half the mail was sent second class and was not for next-day delivery.

Regulator Postcomm said that Royal Mail was not obliged to empty boxes on Sundays. 'Sunday and Bank Holiday collections are not part of Royal Mail's universal service obligation,' it said.

News of the decline in service comes as Royal Mail executives and leaders of the Communication Workers Union try to thrash out a settlement to end a series of strikes over pay and jobs. Both sides have set a Tuesday deadline to reach a deal.

[South East Postie]

another nail in the coffin.

[ROCKY]

blaming soaring losses why do i get the feeling we will getting that a lot over the next few years if we had been seen to make a proffit there would have been no excuses,one word comes to mind
FIX