ROYAL Mail has pledged to "fight for every letter" following the New Year's Day postal revolution that will see it lose its 370-year monopoly on letter delivery.
The UK's postal service market will be opened up tomorrow, allowing rival companies to collect, sort and deliver stamped mail for the first time since the reign of Charles II.
The postal revolution will see "independent" post boxes for letters appearing on street corners for the first time, as rivals are given the legal right to deliver first- and second-class letters.
Royal Mail faces competition from more than a dozen companies that have already registered with regulator Postcomm to handle post in the UK, including German firm Deutsche Post and Dutch postal service TNT.
Oh, wait a minute. Going down the article I find:
Royal Mail currently loses 5p for every first-class letter delivered and 8p for every second-class one.
Despite that and years of under-investment, which mean only 50 per cent of its letters are sorted mechanically, compared with 90 per cent among competitors, it claims it is ready to take on its new rivals.
"Royal Mail will fight hard for every single letter," said spokesman David Simpson. "Royal Mail is determined to compete successfully in the open market, but in order to do so we need a fair regulatory regime and the ability to invest £2 billion in the modernisation of the business..."
And, of course, down a bit more there's the obligatory warning from a union spokesman that the sky will fall if the union has to give up any ground.
But the Communication Workers' Union (CWU) warned that the universal service was "officially under threat". General secretary Billy Hayes said: "Postcomm is threatening the universal service. It should not under-estimate the public affection for daily mail delivery to home addresses."
There's more. Full article here.
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