Postal services in the United Kingdom

The quality of postal services in the 17th and 18th centuries improved with development of better roads and means of transportation.[1]

Anthony Trollope is credited with major contributions to the development of postal services in the years 1851-1867, described, e.g. in Chapters 8 and 13 of his autobiography.[2]

• Postmaster General, position created in 1510
• Royal Mail, established 1516 by King Henry VIII
• General Post Office, established 1660 by King Charles II
• Rowland Hill, creator of the penny post, 1840
• Post Office Ltd, separated from Royal Mail as a new business in 1986
• Parcelforce, separated as a new division within Royal Mail in 1986
• Green Paper on Postal Reform (1994) published setting out the options for privatisation and regulation of the Post Office and Royal Mail
• British Forces Post Office, the British Armed Forces’ postal & courier service, a history of its development

• Postal Services Act 2000
• Postal Services Act 2011
• First Postal Services Directive, 97/67/EC
• Second Postal Services Directive, 2002/39/EC
• Third Postal Services Directive, 2008/06/EC

Currently there are a small number of postal services operating within the United Kingdom. Most notably and previously mentioned is the Royal Mail. But after the opening up of the industry competitors such as Whistl and UK Mail have found their place offering business postal solutions.

1) UK Mail 2) Northern Mail 3) The Delivery Group 4) Whistl 5) Central Mailing Services 6) Citipost Mail

These companies, despite being competitors to the Royal Mail, do however hand over their sorted mail to the Royal Mail for last mile delivery due to the sheer dominance they hold in a process called 'Down Stream Access'[3].

Whistl or then known TNT Post[4] did attempt to do the entire supply chain (That being: Collection, Sorting, Distribution and Delivery) in London, Liverpool and Manchester. Beyond these regions they continued to use down stream access.

However these efforts failed when LDC, a division of the Lloyd's banking group decided against investing in Whistl because of "ongoing changes in UK postal market dynamics and the complexity of the regulatory landscape".

Whistl said: "Following the announcement from LDC that it would not proceed with the proposed investment... to fund further rollout of E2E [end-to-end] we have now commenced an extensive review of the viability and potential for the rollout of an e2e postal delivery service in the UK"[5].

• Public service law in the United Kingdom
• Telecommunications in the United Kingdom
• Broadcasting in the United Kingdom
• Energy policy of the United Kingdom