Royal Mail could be making a huge change. (Image: Getty)
Royal Mail may soon be permitted to discontinue Saturday deliveries for second-class letters under proposed plans, including reduced postal delivery targets.
Following a consultation, the regulator has provisionally concluded that scaling back the second-class letter service to alternate weekdays while maintaining six-day-a-week deliveries for first-class mail would still meet postal users’ needs.
Ofcom has also outlined plans to lower delivery targets, reducing the next-day delivery rate for first-class mail from 93% to 90% and the three-day delivery rate for second-class mail from 98.5% to 95%.
This move would bring the targets more in line with those in other international and European markets.
Natalie Black, Ofcom’s Group Director for Networks and Communications, stated: “The world has changed we’re sending a third of the letters we were 20 years ago.
“We need to reform the postal service to protect its future and ensure it delivers for the whole of the UK.
“But we’re safeguarding what matters most to people first class mail six days a week at the same price throughout the UK, and a price cap on second class stamps.”