Royal Mail today announced it will open nine dedicated packet hubs in the next few weeks ready foran expected boom in online Christmas shopping this year as part of an overall £15 million
investment ready for peak business in December.The British postal operator said the nine dedicated packet hubs will be used to sort asignificant proportion of the packets Royal Mail handles before they are delivered to the door bypostmen and women. The facilities will be located in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Swansea, Bristol,Peterborough, Manchester, Swindon, Nuneaton and Watford.
The development of a dedicated nationwide network to handle packets is a major investment.Separating a significant proportion of the packets from the normal sorting network of 59 mailcentres and ten regional distribution centres, will enable Royal Mail to handle the increasedvolumes of packets as a result of the rise in online shopping as effectively as possible.
It will also provide Royal Mail with increased capacity and flexibility in the event of arepeat of the severe weather conditions that impacted all essential services in the lead up to lastChristmas, and also reduce the potential for congestion in mail centres and regional distributioncentres that sort cards and letters at the busiest times and during severe weather conditions.
Royal Mail, which handles a festive mailbag of around two billion items, is also investing inan additional 73,000 containers and more than one million trays used for transporting the post.
The £15 million investment is in addition to the substantial financial commitment Royal Mailnormally makes on additional resources to handle the festive mailbag of around two billion items.On the busiest days in the run up to Christmas, Royal Mail expects to handle up to 130 millionitems – around double the normal average daily mailbag of 62 million items.
Mark Higson, Royal Mail’s Managing Director of Operations and Modernisation, said: “Christmasis the busiest time of year for Royal Mail and our customers. On peak days we handle around 130million items – around double our normal average daily mailbag of 62 million items. Royal Mail hasinvested an additional £15 million to increase our scale and improve our flexibility during thisimportant time of year for our customers.
“As we do every year, we encourage people to post early and order presents early to help usspread the workload of handling around two billion items in the run up to Christmas.”
