Royal Mail to axe two-thirds of rural bus service.

[NEWS]

KENT NEWS

ROYAL Mail has come under fire for axing two-thirds of a bus service that serves isolated rural areas.

Kent County Council said Royal Mail went ahead with the controversial decision despite an offer of increased financial support to keep the services going.

Post buses collect mail from post boxes and ferry people from isolated areas into and out of towns.

Nine services currently operate across the county but from September there will be only three in Gravesham and Sittingbourne.

KCC said Royal Mail originally planned to axe all the services but relented on three following urgent discussions with the county council.

The services facing the axe are numbers 301, 302 and 303 that serve villages in the Canterbury area plus 330, 331 and 332 in the Maidstone area.

The three services to be kept on are the 300 that serves Sittingbourne, Wormshill, Frinstead, Milstead and Highstead.

In Gravesham the reprieved services are the 304 Gravesend, Fairseat and Stansted service and 305 Gravesend, Bean, Betsham.

Cabinet member for transport Keith Ferrin said most of the passengers were pensioners.

He said: “We have saved three services, somewhat against the odds, and people in those areas must ensure they use the service in order to fight the risk of Royal Mail withdrawing them in future.â€

[POSTMAN]

So i'm presuming they made bundles of dosh out of it before or they now feel that they can screw the public more because they need all the money they can get/save.
How times change huh.

[johno47]

Well I knew this sort of thing would happen, its like i have said in previous post on this site, the general public will be the big losers when competition is introduced, the only winners are greedy businesses wanting an easy way to increase their profits, this is what i was trying to get through to Fozzie about, the whole point of competition is to give the public a choice but all it is, is a way for the goverment and the E.U to take away a great British public service, profit is the new service the public will get, its an absolute disgrace, Fozzie all RM bosses ought to hang their heads with shame..
UNITY IS STRENGTH..

[dongash]

hi, what a disgrace! yet more more meddling by the asset stripping bastards (leighton/crozier) it wasn't broke before you took over! why is it broke now? you have put postage up more than anybody else has been allowed to and got rid of more jobs and still you can't manage!!! do the decent thing and resign now! if i was as s**t at my job as you are i would have been sacked years ago! regards dongash macclesfield opg

[F0zziebear]

Yes the post bus was always under threat eventually, but is an emotional issue like Post Offices, and Mail Rail. They all encompass the sentimental and emotional attachment to Royal Mail. This is being stripped bear, and no I don't agree with it, but it's necessary under the current circumstances.

As for competition, yes at the moment it is benefitting the priviledged few. These few customers are mainly big banks and and utility companies. However, these big companies and utilities are owned by shareholders. I only wonder if these shareholders include some pension funds? Does anyone know? And are any of these funds linked for example to pension funds? What I am getting at as said before is that whilst we all agree that this liberalisation/privatisation doesn't seem to be helping, we might be actually indirectly complicite. Does anyone know how the RM pension funds are invested? But these investments needs to make a return otherwise there won't be enough funds for you to draw your pensions.

I would also argue that the move to liberalisation/privatisation has improved quality of service, as the results recently demonstrated. So whilst RM has removed over 30,000 roles in only a few years the companies performance (QofS) has also improved.

What I am really saying is that when you only look at an issue from one perspective you can sometimes come out with the answer you are looking for. Then you consider the same issue from another view and you suddenly realise that maybe you are not quite so whiter than white and that the evil top management, whilst being selfish, greedy, and human are not necesarily much worse than many other people in our consumerist and neo-liberal socially acceptable capitalist society that we all inhabit and participate in. No-one I know has ever enjoyed losing monopoly, but we all play!

F0zz Einstein III

[johno47]

Fozzie taking away the post bus isnt necessary, and thats the point im making it has everything to do with saving money and nothing to do with service, all of these things are happening because of competition, and a company thats trying to fight competition on an uneven playing field, you can not have one company that has to provide a universal delivery and any other companies that come into the mail market being able to cherry pick the cream of profit, it just isnt right, if RM have got such an unfair advantage because they are exempt from VAT then how come rivals are getting the juicy contracts and making vast profits whilst RM is the only one thats reduced its workforce and cutting costs, competition need only a small percentage of staff to RM because they dont have to provide a E2E service, simple as that.
You ask about our pension fund and us being complicite in shareholder dealings, that is a bit harsh considering that any investments that they might have in these companies, i say might have, has probably been invested in any companies for years, i do know that our pension has got a lot of land and building stock that they own, and a lot of it is in London on prime sites, but once again you have missed the point, you will be another one or maybe not, that in 10 years time looks back, and sees an industry desimated for profit. And quality of service was bound to go when you take out second deliverys, because you have a whole delivery for RM, or us to make any mistakes or misdeliverys, so percentages were bound to increase when you reduce the chances of mistakes being made.

[POSTMAN]

Have to jump in here.

FOzz!!!! What the f**k has the slags who have jumped ship and f****d off to the competition got to do with our pensions!!!!!
So are you now saying lets give theses c***s the work to boost their profits because we MAY have an interest in them with our pension!!!
Whether we have an interest in these scum with our pensions,them not using us and saving money on stamps will no way affect our pensions.
They're too greedy cutting costs with their own workers as well so the share divi is high.
Is this a bit of scaremongering FOzz

[F0zziebear]

1. I don't work for the competition (and being there for a short period of time to do a specific piece of work)
2. The competition are paying for the delivery part than they would themselves, but the initial cost to compete is very high and operationally very risky
3. I think we should all be careful when slagging off private companies for attempting to make profits when our futures are tied up in stocks & shares (admittedly property as well)
4. The postbus service is a nice to have and could/should stay in a 'public sector' service. However a decison was made to turn RM into a standalone profit making company (nice Labour principals) and services which are not core to the business were always going to disappear.
5. Quality was improving prior to having 2 deliveries. Moving to 1 delivery mean't later deliveries on average, but I haven't seen a massive protest regarding these later deliveries. It is also possible to get this mail earlier for an extra fee.

I don't either aim to scremonger ot encourage. I aim to present I interpretation of the facts and provide some insight where I think it will add to the debate.

I have little or nothing to gain from the current situation. Well you never know!

F0zz

Agent 00?