Royal Mail Sunday deliveries and the future of Saturday letters

[geoffk]

Mod Note: Posts #1 - #8 originally in this thread.

I had a Christmas card arrive here in Exeter on 24th January - from Torquay! I've just seen a Royal Mail van today (Sunday) delivering a parcel to a neighbour. I didn't know they were working Sundays. Recently it was announced that Royal Mail was considering scrapping the Saturday delivery, or even reducing deliveries to 3 days a week. My Radio Times regularly arrives late (it came on Friday last week and is supposed to come on a Tuesday) - fortunately it's the only time-critical post I have.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I had a Christmas card arrive here in Exeter on 24th January - from Torquay!

Chance it was stuck at the bottom of a (not quite emptied) mail bag, and not "found" again until the bag is next used.

I've just seen a Royal Mail van today (Sunday) delivering a parcel to a neighbour. I didn't know they were working Sundays.

Me neither. Seen this now a few times though, and in various localities.

 

[Vexed]

Everything here in St Albans comes through Home Counties North mail centre and generally comes on time. Longest cards over Christmas took about 7 days but most were 2-5.
Over the last few months, most of my 2nd class eBay purchases (usually large letter) come in two days, the rest in three.

I've just seen a Royal Mail van today (Sunday) delivering a parcel to a neighbour. I didn't know they were working Sundays.

Tracked 24 parcels posted on Saturday should be delivered on Sundays in most postcodes. I think this started about a year ago.

 

[jon81uk]

I think the Royal Mail Sunday deliveries is to help them keep the contracts with the big online retailers like Amazon and ASOS, they need to compete with Evri, DPD etc and seven day a week parcel delivery will help make RM more appealing to those big companies. Those contracts are worth a lot to RM, in some respects without those big contract RM wouldn't exist anymore.

 

[Busaholic]

I think the Royal Mail Sunday deliveries is to help them keep the contracts with the big online retailers like Amazon and ASOS, they need to compete with Evri, DPD etc and seven day a week parcel delivery will help make RM more appealing to those big companies. Those contracts are worth a lot to RM, in some respects without those big contract RM wouldn't exist anymore.

But then why were they trying to get out of trying to make Saturday deliveries? It doesn't add up.

 

[ainsworth74]

But then why were they trying to get out of trying to make Saturday deliveries? It doesn't add up.

They're trying to get out of Saturday letter deliveries. Not parcels. Whatever happens I cannot see Royal Mail ditching seven day parcel deliveries.

 

[Busaholic]

They're trying to get out of Saturday letter deliveries. Not parcels. Whatever happens I cannot see Royal Mail ditching seven day parcel deliveries.

But they are also competing with some courier companies on deliveries from Amazon etc, many of which get delivered by the postie.

 

[jon81uk]

But they are also competing with some courier companies on deliveries from Amazon etc, many of which get delivered by the postie.

Even if they are delivered by the postie, the tracked 24/48 business services and parcels are getting priority over the letter deliveries.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

They're trying to get out of Saturday letter deliveries. Not parcels. Whatever happens I cannot see Royal Mail ditching seven day parcel deliveries.

The advent of email, both commercial and personal, must have dramatically cut down a great number of letter items that once were posted.

 

[infobleep]

A friend got my Christmas card around the start of this month. They live in Oxford. I'd posted it second class in the middle of December.

He said it looked as if it might have been in a flood so I declared it must have gone by flood class.

My parents, in Haywards Heath, had bad post before Christmas and my Christmas card to friends in Hamburg, Germany, arrived about two weeks before my parents received theirs.

They were posted around the same time.

 

[ainsworth74]

The advent of email, both commercial and personal, must have dramatically cut down a great number of letter items that once were posted.

My impression is that email started the rot, certainly for personal communication, but it's text messaging, video chat and general social media that has done for a lot of the letter traffic. I certainly don't send birthday or Christmas cards to people but I do drop them a message on Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp when it's their birthday or on Christmas Day. Though clearly there's a generational component judging from the number of Christmas and birthday cards my mother still receives!

For business communication though email, online banking, and other online services must have cut down on the amount of commercial paperwork considerably as well. Professionally speaking the amount that I send by post has started to decline as well as more Government departments become amenable to email or electronic communication. That'll be another area where the volume of letters has substantially declined.

To be quite honest I wouldn't particularly morn the loss of a six day letter delivery particularly if it meant that the Royal Mail could deliver consistently. I'd be quite happy with Monday, Wednesday and Friday deliveries of letters if it meant that something that was posted on Tuesday 1st class would definitely be delivered in Wednesday's post rather than the current mess where letters appear to turn up randomly. It would probably require some work to amend various bits of procedure, regulation and guidance across numerous different sectors that all rely on the idea of letters being delivered six days a week. There's all sorts of places where you're allowed to assume service of documents the day after posting 1st class which trigger time limits to reply to those documents which would need tweaking in a world where letters are only delivered a few times per week.

All that being said at least my Private Eye seems to have settled down to arriving on either publication day or the day after

 

[scarby]

To be quite honest I wouldn't particularly morn the loss of a six day letter delivery particularly if it meant that the Royal Mail could deliver consistently. I'd be quite happy with Monday, Wednesday and Friday deliveries of letters if it meant that something that was posted on Tuesday 1st class would definitely be delivered in Wednesday's post rather than the current mess where letters appear to turn up randomly.

For what it's worth, by comparison, the delivery of regular letter post in Sweden is now every other weekday - Monday, Wednesday and Friday one week and then Tuesday and Thursday the following week. There haven't been Saturday deliveries for as long as I can remember.

 

[75A]

We've had a Post Office van delivering Amazon parcels here on a Sunday for some months.

 

[uglymonkey]

I am amazed, it hasn't been a 6 day service for some time. here in North Herts, you usually get 2 or 3 deliveries a week - .

 

[simonw]

We've had a Post Office van delivering Amazon parcels here on a Sunday for some months.

You might have had a Royal Mail van, I doubt it was a post office van

 

[75A]

It was red!

 

[simonw]

It was red!

The point being, the P.O. don't deliver.

 

[75A]

The point being, the P.O. don't deliver.

It was a red van driven by the same bloke that drives up to us in the week with letters & parcels, we don't have a letter box in the door, we have a mailbox on the drive, and he drives past the house to turn round.
The van is red, and the driver wears company clothing, I think the high viz says Royal Mail but I wouldn't swear to it..

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Are mobile Post Office vans still a thing? Likely to be used in a number of rural locations that don't have a regular (bricks and mortar) Post Office branch service.

 

[75A]

Are mobile Post Office vans still a thing? Likely to be used in a number of rural locations that don't have a regular (bricks and mortar) Post Office branch service.

Not seen one in this part of the world, the 2 nearest villages to me both have a Post Office counter in a corner shop.

 

[Busaholic]

Are mobile Post Office vans still a thing? Likely to be used in a number of rural locations that don't have a regular (bricks and mortar) Post Office branch service.

The Post Office introduced 40 Mercedes Sprinter vans in 2014, maybe paid for by the wrongly-accused sub-postmasters ( ) converted to mobile P.O.s but how many are left, or whether they've been replaced, I haven't a clue.

 

[DC1989]

I wouldn't be opposed to a reduction in deliveries for post (people can always pay extra for a guaranteed delivery) but then things like NHS should not only be sending letters. Maybe letters worked back in the day when you could be sure if you sent one on Thursday it would arrive Friday. But now that letter may take a week to reach you. A letter which could be given you the all clear on a important test you're worried about for example. So you can't reduce the service level without changing this first imo

Why do the NHS insist on sending letters for things that could be an email or text? Yes some people may still prefer letters but there's no reason they couldn't do both. The email goes out the same day as your letter. I wonder how many appointments are missed from not receiving letters

Similarly letters from the council and other (mostly) public sector orgs

 

[simonw]

I wouldn't be opposed to a reduction in deliveries for post (people can always pay extra for a guaranteed delivery) but then things like NHS should not only be sending letters. Maybe letters worked back in the day when you could be sure if you sent one on Thursday it would arrive Friday. But now that letter may take a week to reach you. A letter which could be given you the all clear on a important test you're worried about for example. So you can't reduce the service level without changing this first imo

Why do the NHS insist on sending letters for things that could be an email or text? Yes some people may still prefer letters but there's no reason they couldn't do both. The email goes out the same day as your letter. I wonder how many appointments are missed from not receiving letters

Similarly letters from the council and other (mostly) public sector orgs

I would imagine it is because they do not necessarily have a way of collecting e-mail addresses, especially when contact may be infrequent. having said that, my drs and dentist use txt to contact me.

 

[Silenos]

Are mobile Post Office vans still a thing? Likely to be used in a number of rural locations that don't have a regular (bricks and mortar) Post Office branch service.

Yes, my village has one every Tuesday morning, serviced from Great Massingham sub-post office. Quite handy around Christmas time as they’ll take parcels.