Mail and parcel deliveries in London are likely to be slowed by the 2012 Olympic and ParalympicGames between July 27th and September 9th, Royal Mail warned yesterday while stressing it is “ready
to serve London” during the sporting mega-events.The British postal operator said it had worked closely with the organising committees andTransport for London and had secured sufficient access to be able to deliver, collect, sort andtransport business and customer mail during the Games with collections and deliveries on six days aweek.
“Our six days a week service to business and residential addresses will be maintained duringthe Games by our 10,000 strong London operation. We will also collect six days a week frombusinesses, Post Offices and post boxes, and keep our 116 delivery offices open as usual,” itstated.
Mark Thomson, Olympic Director for Royal Mail, said: “Royal Mail is geared up to serve Londonduring the Games. We will continue to collect and deliver six days a week despite the inevitableimpact on the capital’s transport system because of the Games.”
However, travel and transport restrictions in London during the period would increase journeytimes, especially affecting the postcodes E, EC, N, NW, SE, SW, W and WC, the company warned.Customers were requested to post mail a day earlier if possible, and postal workers would starttheir delivery rounds earlier to ensure they had time to complete them.
In addition, the Special Delivery next day service will only have delivery guaranteed for thenext day rather than 9am and 1pm.
Meanwhile, Parcelforce Worldwide, Royal Mail’s parcels unit, is investing more than £1million to take on 260 additional staff for the period and to use 140 extra hire vehicles to keeppackages on the move.
However, despite these measures, the security restrictions and traffic congestion will affectthe time it takes vehicles to travel across the capital and carry out their deliveries. “We intendto maintain delivery guarantees on our next day service “express24” and while we will prioritisethe delivery of our timed services, “express9”, “express10”, “expressAM” and “expressPM”, it willnot be possible to maintain normal delivery guarantees on these,” the company warned.
As part of these measures, Parcelforce, like other delivery companies, will be making a smallextra charge for delivery to the affected postcodes in London. The charge of £1 perconsignment will be in effect during the Olympic Games (July 27th to August 12th) and ParalympicGames (August 29th to September 9th). This will replace the 50p charge normally applied because ofthe London Congestion Charge.
