Royal Mail announced yesterday that it was moving 70 of its flagship Crown post offices into WHSmith newspaper stores across the UK.
WH Smith, which says the franchise deal will increase its annual profits by GBP 2.5 million,has successfully trialled six such relocations since summer last year.
The public postal operator’s troubled subsidiary, Post Office Ltd, said it would continue torun 373 of its current 458 High Street branches.
The others will either be moved to WH Smith, to reopen within a year, or shut as part of thegovernment-backed closure of 2,500 post offices, mostly in rural areas, over the next few years.
“The combination of Post Office Ltd and WHSmith makes perfect sense for customers – there area lot of natural links between the products we sell and we both believe that the combination of WHSmith store and Post Office branch will strengthen our respective businesses,” said Post Office Ltdmanaging director Alan Cook.
“These branches will remain as main post offices offering the same range of over 170 productsand services as available in all Crown post offices. We can now start to put the Crown officenetwork on a sound financial footing, after many years of heavy losses,” Cook added.
The Crown post offices to remain under Post Office control will undergo major refurbishing,Cook said. They would also provide more dedicated services for small business customers.Self-service kiosks for parcel posting were being tested in them to avoid queues at the counter.
WH Smith recently decided to reduce its reliance on entertainment products such as DVDs andCDs while increasing its focus on stationery and books.
The CWU postal workers’ union has said the relocation of the Crown post offices amounts to “blatant privatisation” of the state-owned company.
