Royal Mail to reduce number of deliveries

Post will arrive later and the second delivery will be scrapped under a new delivery system to be tested by Royal Mail. About 100,000 homes around the country will receive the new service within months in an attempt to cut costs and meet targets for the delivery of first-class mail.

Consignia, the company running Royal Mail, said the move would help it to meet its obligation to deliver to every household in Britain six days a week. Homes in 14 areas chosen for the trials will have a single delivery no later than lunchtime, though Consignia said customers with large amounts of mail would get the post earlier.

The Postal Services Commission (Postcomm), the postal services watchdog, said because so few deliveries were completed by the 9.30am cut-off, it made sense to aim for a more realistic deadline of lunchtime, and dispense with the expensive second delivery.

Consignia, which loses an estimated £1.5m per day – £1m on letter deliveries alone – has come under increasing pressure to cut costs as the Government moves towards full deregulation of postal services by 2006. The group had relied on subsidising household deliveries through bulk mail but that monopoly will be be open to competition next year.

The Royal Mail said some people will receive later deliveries, although others could see no change, or even have post delivered earlier than at present. The trials will formalise the end of second deliveries, which are in practice not made in most areas anyway.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "Royal Mail has to deliver a reliable universal service to everyone for the price of a stamp, including to many places where the cost of that service is considerably more than 27p. The regulator is increasing the pressure on Royal Mail with the proposal to open the most profitable elements of the market to competition in just a few weeks. Our delivery patterns have not changed for many years and we believe there is scope to increase efficiency and improve reliability."

The trials will start in Crawley, West Sussex; Bow in east London; Edinburgh; Sheringham in Norfolk; east Manchester; Llanelli; Newbury; Newhaven; Loughborough; Halifax; Plymouth; Ballymena; Thirsk and St Helens.

There had been speculation that post might not be delivered until mid-afternoon, but the Royal Mail said the changes would mean a single delivery six days a week by lunchtime.

The consumer watchdog group Postwatch said any changes should respond to customer views and needs instead of just meeting the aims of Consignia to save money.

Postcomm said it hoped the move would help the Post Office achieve a higher proportion of first-class post the next day. It set a deadline of mid-March for responses to its three-stage plan to deregulate the industry, starting with bulk mail.

Last month Consignia complained that the plans would result in its own "death by a thousand cuts". It drafted proposals to increase the cost of postage stamps to 40p for first class and 30p for second class if reforms are pushed through.

Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, has said the Government would not interfere. But ministers are concerned at the prospect of a nationwide postal strike, threatened by the Communication Workers' Union over pay, and many MPs want Postcomm to change or delay its plans.