Star comment: Let's hope new service will deliver

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What is the Royal Mail for? It is the fundamental question which is thrown sharply into focus by moves which will effectively see a transformation from a people’s service into a private enterprise.

The difference is crucial – the difference between being an entity in which serving the people is an end in itself, and being an organisation which runs on business principles, which means aiming to make a profit.

There was a time when you could find post offices in many of the villages of Shropshire and Mid Wales. They were part of the fabric of the local scene, making a significant contribution to the vitality and life of those communities.

Over the years the service element has been devalued and downgraded in the name of progress.

It is tough luck for the customers in rural areas. They are expected to travel to towns to access the service. And so things are turned on their head – instead of post offices reaching out to serve the people, the people have become the ones serving the needs of the Royal Mail.

Post offices are not part of these latest plans, but are a part of a trend by which the impact of putting moneymaking at the heart of a business can be judged.

If you see the queues of people at sorting offices responding to one of those drop-off cards which gets pushed through the door, you may wonder if things are not increasingly swaying in the direction of it being a collection service rather than a delivery service.

When it comes to looking at the future of the Royal Mail, big business brains are at work. The plight of that housebound old lady, or that disabled gentleman living right out in the sticks, will not feature highly in their financial calculations.

In a privately-run Royal Mail, they will be looking at commercial pricing and efficient business practices. Or, to put it another way, higher prices and job losses.