Royal Mail to charge £750 a year for delivery of early post

Householders and businesses will have to pay £750 a year if they want their post delivered before 9am, Royal Mail announced yesterday. The scheme is part of an attempt by Royal Mail's parent company, Consignia, to stem losses that are running at £1.2m a day.

Business organisations and opposition MPs reacted angrily, warning the move could jeopardise the survival of small firms that rely on getting their post early.

Trials of a new delivery system will start in 14 areas of the country next week. The aim is to start introducing the charge nationally from the autumn.

Royal Mail is scrapping the second post and moving to a single delivery, timed to arrive between 9am and lunchtime. Anyone who wants their post delivered earlier will have to pay £14 a week. Any address that receives more than 20 letters a day will continue to get a free delivery before 9am.

Sally Low, director of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: "A cheque arriving in the mail before 9am or after noon can mark the difference between a firm surviving or folding." John Whittingdale, the Conservative trade and industry spokesman, said the extra charge was a "significant additional cost".

But the consumer organisation Postwatch supported the scheme. Its chairman, Peter Carr, said: "It's quite right to examine every option to improve its profitability. There can be no sacred cows."

Householders could also be charged £1 a bag or £5 a week for refuse collection, under proposals considered by Downing Street. Under EU rules the UK has to reduce the amount of biodegradeable municipal waste going to landfills to 75 per cent of the 1995 level by 2010 and to 50 per cent by 2013.