Britain’s first fully privatised door-to-door post service to rival the Royal Mail is to betrialled in Scotland. Glasgow and Edinburgh have been chosen, along with Manchester, for an
experiment which will give customers the choice of having collection, sorting and delivery carriedout entirely in private hands.The trial, to be conducted later this year by Royal Mail’s biggest rival, TNT, will seethousands of households visited by two postal workers and could pave the way for greatercompetition throughout the rest of Britain. Business leaders welcomed the possibility of improvedservices. Edinburgh has the worst first-class delivery performance in Scotland, while Glasgow isthird-worst.
From later this year, TNT’s own postal workers will be able to collect, sort and deliver letterssent to addresses within Glasgow and Edinburgh. Charges have yet to be decided, but the scheme islikely to be more cost-effective for business customers, rather than domestic users posting singleitems. TNT is in discussion with local authorities about delivery contracts, thought to involvebulk mail such as council tax bills. A TNT spokeswoman said: “The plans are at an early stage, andeven if the trial is successful it will be a long time before we can provide a comprehensiveend-to-end service in other areas. Remember, the Royal Mail has a 350-year head start on us.”
Royal Mail, which is facing industrial action in a dispute over pay and job losses, insisted itwas “not afraid of competition”. A spokeswoman said the arrival of TNT should make union members“wake up to the very real impact of strike action on business and therefore on jobs” and that TNTwas only interested in lucrative business-to-business deliveries. “We sort eight million items anddeliver to two and a half million households in Scotland every day, so private operators have along way to go to match our network.”
The trial is the first major development since the postal market was deregulated on 1 January.Since then, Netherlands-based TNT has processed more than 60 million UK letters a month. Butprivate companies still use ordinary postal workers for final delivery of most items because onlyRoyal Mail can provide a universal service to Britain’s 27 million households. Many firms use RoyalMail sorting facilities as well.
