Where we live (and undoubtedly elsewhere) their is the perception that Royal mail are prioritizing parcels.
Yep !
Saturday a parcel. posted friday 2nd class tracked last nught at 18.25pm a parcel.posted monday 2nd class tracked.
Today no letters but 3 different leaflets delivered by Royal Mail.
|
Being away for the past 5 weeks daughter went to house to check on the mail in case there was anything important.
A few bank statements which I still have mailed although I can easily check online. A hospital appointment which was confirmation of that already seen on NHS Direct. A large pile enroute from the post box to the recycling box. Zero of any consequence.
Snail mail is well and truly past it’s sell by date.
Parcels a different matter with the rise and rise of online shopping.
|
>> Snail mail is well and truly past it’s sell by date.
Up to a point.
I'm 100% paperless with bank/credit cards and should be with investments but there are a few tax vouchers that still come by post. Mrs B has been slack and both her credit card statements are posted.
Most days though it's various club magazines - CAMC, Cycling UK etc and odd other item.
NHS are still heavy users of snail mail for appointments etc.
We've had something today to remind Mrs B her postal vote has lapsed - failed to deal with previous reminder.
Oh and b***** parking tickets come by post too.....
|
My main concern was the parking and speeding ticket risk with limited time for discounted payment.
Some bank and investment type stuff still delivered to ensure that if I succumb, there will be hard copy evidence for whoever sorts my affairs.
This does not need 6 days a week obligation - deliveries one day a week would be more than enough. It may even reduce the outrageous cost of a first class stamp at £1.70.
|
I'm sure our post is rationed....it arrived in fits and starts. As a new victim of hospital appointments
I get them all and my GP appointments on an App. It's actually rather good !
I subscribe to Private Eye, which arrived more or less on time I've just cancelled my Ride and Motorcycle Sport subs and now depend on Pressreader. I treated myself to a 13" iPad (for choir sheet music)and it's the ideal medium to read newspapers and magazines online.
I think we should be able to collect our mail from Post Offices etc....I guess that's the way it will go in the end.
|
I subscribe to the New Statesman. It should arrive Thursday every week but sometimes it's well into the following week.
More than once it's gone AWOL altogether.
|
As well as traffic infringements the courts serve most process in the County and Mags Courts by post. There's a rebuttable presumption that something posted first class will arrive in n days (I cannot remember the value of n).
If we reduced deliveries to, say, one a week there are many impacts to think through...
|
I am sure that someone can come up with the cost of postage in the EU.
Last time I posted a card in france to germany it was 3.70 euros.
Oh and we received a card last week sent from San Francisco last April..
|
Ironically, I'm waiting to receive a cheque from Royal Mail which they said they sent 9th Jan!
I still have current account bank statements by post, due to losing the PC last year when the HDD failed. I've a smartphone, tablet and fat fingers. Can't get on with things like statements on them.
|
>> I still have current account bank statements by post, due to losing the PC last
>> year when the HDD failed. I've a smartphone, tablet and fat fingers. Can't get on
>> with things like statements on them.
Me neither.
PC, keyboard and screen are just the job.
Tablet's good for reading the Graun at a hotel breakfast table though.
|
>> I am sure that someone can come up with the cost of postage in the
>> EU.
>> Last time I posted a card in france to germany it was 3.70 euros.
>> Oh and we received a card last week sent from San Francisco last April..
>>
Postage stamp in Australia has just gone up to A$1.85 which is 97 pence British. The service is poor and slow with things going missing. Sounds the same as UK.
|
|
£1.75 in sweden, and two stamps are used for anywhere outside the country. They come 2 or 3 times a week, alternating. The state owned postal service in Denmark doesnt deliver letters any more.
|
Very little mail delivered these days.
Days pass with nothing BUT last Friday 6 letters from various places all over the UK.
Surely this is down to mail lying in a Royal Mail sorting office / printed by sender and not posted right away.
I cannot really believe all 6 were posted 2/3 days ago! Nothing urgent - the actual dates on the letters were spread over 6-8 days.
|
|
Private Eye arrived two days early, on its own !
|
>> Private Eye arrived two days early, on its own !
Mrs B picked one up in Sainsburys today.
|
We all know that email and other methods have reduced the number of letters relative to parcels, but for decades I have wondered why, in a country this size with pretty good communications, anyone saw the practical sense in two speeds of mail. About 60 years ago almost anything could be posted from any A to any B, and most would arrive the next day. What is the point in wasting time and effort separating stuff into fast and slow, other than to con the public into paying a bit more. Just get it on its way asap !
Of course back then, a lot went by train - that doesn't happen now. And in the 80s, planes used to converge on Liverpool to swop bags of mail before going home again.
Last edited by: Andrew-T on Wed 18 Feb 26 at 18:38
|
|
Pressure from businesses whose mail wasn't time critical?
|
In Victorian London there were 12 deliveries a day.
In the eighties I used to post urgent mail in the Letterbox of the Norwich London Mail train.
|
|
My PE arrived today too, I'm sure it's usually Thursdays.
|
I worked in the Middle East for 1970 to 1972.
Letters were the only communication. A phone call, booked in advance, was roughly £5 for 3 mins. £5 was enough to feed 2 x adults for a week in the UK.
Posted on a Thursday I would receive a letter on the Saturday, occasionally Sunday - excluding Ramadan.
Cost of UK 1st class was 3p with the Middle East being 4p going up to 5p latterly IIRC
|
|
Let’s face it. Letter post is going the way of cash. And telegrams. It’s basically doomed. Can’t remember when I last posted anything. Yes I do get the odd communication but nothing really that couldn’t be emailed.
|
>> Let’s face it. Letter post is going the way of cash. And telegrams. It’s basically doomed. Can’t remember when I last posted anything. Yes I do get the odd communication but nothing really that couldn’t be emailed. >>
I think there will still be a minority who can't or won't receive electronic mail. Probably the powers that be will cast them adrift, as often happens. But as long as some established processes assume that an essential letter. posted, will be deemed to have been delivered within three days (or whatever) the PO will have to continue.
What is daft is fining them (or water companies, or the NHS) for failures. Doesn't seem logical somehow. Fine the bosses.
|
>> Probably the powers that be will cast them adrift, as often happens. But as long
>> as some established processes assume that an essential letter. posted, will be deemed to have
>> been delivered within three days (or whatever) the PO will have to continue.
Therein is the problem.
It's not impossible to stop letter post delivery but there will be a lot of work to replace it.
|
Fines sent by post would be the big one.
We still send hospital appointments out by post as many of our patients can't access them electronically - also many employers still insist on a physical letter to prove they have a surgery date - we have had so many cancellations due to employers refusing time of off for ops because letters haven't arrived.
|
>> Fines sent by post would be the big one.
Not just fines.
The County Courts removed the option of Bailiff service for what used to be summonses years ago. Postal service is the default with the statutory assumption that stuff will be delivered. Something like 2 million new cases every year, mostly bulk issue by banks etc for debt.
Magistrates no doubt have similar or higher volumes.
Speeding tickets (NIP etc) are served by post. As are parking tickets (or the Notice to Owner follow up as well as those for bus lanes and various other infringements like prohibited turns.
The law regarding parking on private land has similar assumptions.
Like abolishing the role of the Lord Chancellor, which Tony Blair sketched out on the back of a fag packet, to rid himself of Derry Irvine, it's probably too complicated to consider.
|
>> We still send hospital appointments out by post as many of our patients can't access
>> them electronically
My wife's specialist appointment notification arrived by post 4 days after the appointment date. Luckily we had phoned them to get details beforehand or we would have missed it.
|
>> Let’s face it. Letter post is going the way of cash. And telegrams. It’s basically
>> doomed. Can’t remember when I last posted anything. Yes I do get the odd communication
>> but nothing really that couldn’t be emailed.
>>
It will disappear but it'll be longer than some imagine. See cheques, banks had been threatening to get rid of them for years but they still here. Smart meter rollout, uptake on EV etc.
|
“It will disappear but it'll be longer than some imagine.”
I guess as a nation we prefer to look back to the past rather than look forward to the future. Change is the enemy to be resisted.
|
>> I guess as a nation we prefer to look back to the past rather than look forward to the future. Change is the enemy to be resisted. >>
Change is one thing, and not necessarily for the better - it may be worth asking who expects to make the biggest packet from selling to an over-eager public.
Progress is more important, preferably with a serious amount of looking before leaping.
|
>> “It will disappear but it'll be longer than some imagine.”
>>
>> I guess as a nation we prefer to look back to the past rather than
>> look forward to the future. Change is the enemy to be resisted.
>>
>>
>>
Might well be, might be some getting giddy and needed a bit of time to calm down then knock wishful thinking on the head.
|
>> “It will disappear but it'll be longer than some imagine.”
>>
>> I guess as a nation we prefer to look back to the past rather than
>> look forward to the future. Change is the enemy to be resisted.
>>
>>
For some, for some the new thing isn't that great not yet anyway.
|
Postal deliveries - Terry
