With all the discussion about the postal service and the fact that stamps are going up to 39p shortly I wondered whether, for private households, a daily postal service is any longer required.

I don’t think I get anything through the post now that requires my immediate attention so only getting it delivered once a week wouldn’t be a problem to me (other than when the stw comes out, obviously!).

I guess the question really is – is a daily postal service an anachronism?

what about the nearly 50% of households that do not have access to broadband?

how does that affect postal services?

There’s not much I do online that would previously have happened via the post anyway?

sending/receiving money, letters, bank statements, legal stuff

the list is pretty much endless!

doe sit really matter if your bank statement arrives on Friday instead of Tuesday? you can view transactions at a cash point.

Legal docs – a daily registered post/speical delivery service is availabel separate to normal postal deliveries.

I really can’t remember the last time I had a cheque in the post – I give people my name sort code and bank a/c number and they either do a transfer by internet or telephone banking. Someone tried to sned me one fromt he clasifieds a few weeks back and it never arrived.

All the above are important but I can’t see anythign that woudl be harmful to not get a few days later. and if you knew Thursday was ‘post day’ you’d organise stuff to arrive for them if it mattered to you.

It’s wishfull thinking but the reality is that a postman could not carry ones weeks worth of mail in a day. As a postie myself, my daily workload is anywhere between 50 and 100 kilos a day. The delivery frames we use in the sorting office can only just handle ones days worth and would be overflowing with two days mail.
I would like to see an end to saturday deliveries though, but that is a different issue altogether.

Seems like a sensible idea. I’m in no hurry to recieve all hat junk mail. Like you say, I don’t get anything in the post that couldn’t afford to wait a week. Besides, as was said above, if it’s that important, it will come via the recorded service at a premium. I’d vote for a drop in price and fewer deliveries.

I guess I was thinking that a shorter round with a higher ‘hit rate’ of post/property would be more efficient?

but I can see 400kg of post is likely to challenge even the porker that delivers my post…

I’d like to see an end to junk mail.
Or even the option to have junk mail binned at the depot.
Save the postie lugging the shite around.

39p is still bog all.

You can’t even buy a wispa for that.

I can’t for the life of me see why they don’t just stick the price of a stamp up to 50p or whatever it takes to fund the service reasonably, then stop all the whining. I maybe post an actual letter twenty times a year, Christmas cards excepted, and even doubling the price of a stamp wouldn’t deter me much.

You can still buy wispas?

You can still buy wispas?

Hell yeah.

Good to see Wispas back on the shelves, if you ask me. Mind, they’re not quite as nice as hey used to be, I have to say.

I think I get more junk mail than ‘real’ mail – we try to do as much online as we can.

I re-register with mail preference every year, and just sent off to have the ‘by hand’ stuff stopped as well.

FWIW, i think we should do a Mon-Fri only delivery service.

They’re not so fat but taste just as good.

The Private equity company that owns the Dutch postal service is the one lobbying the government to go private. Private Eye first uncovered this connection- its looking horribly corrupt and suspect.