Postal nonsense
Sir; The allegations by Sydney Norgate (Letters, 10 July) are of course nonsense and display a complete misunderstanding of the present two-tier postal system.
This was introduced at a time when the number of letters posted at Peak hours had become so great that postal resources were being stretched to the limit to provide next. day delivery. On the basis that all letters are not urgent the Post Office gave the customer the choice—a fast, first-class priority service or a slower but cheaper second-class service.
By definition therefore second-class letters will inevitably move less quickly through the system—they are in fact sorted only at times when expensive overtime rates need not paid. To claim they are deliberately delaYed is wrong and to assert that this is a blackmail ploy to force our customers into using the first-class service is quite spurious.
There is incidentally, no validity in the common belief that segregation of mails into first and second-class streams requires double handling. This is done at the salve time as letters are aligned for postmarking and involves no extra handling. IncreasinglY it is a process done by high-speed machines' If Mr Norgate is advocating, as he seeras to be, a return to a single-tier system he ought to be made aware that the increase in the number of men, machines and buildings that would be needed to cope would require a stamp of considerably greater value than the 7p he suggests.
As for the suspension of Sunday cone°. tions referred to by Mr Reichardt, vv,e appreciated at the time that some peoPle would be inconvenienced. This is something we very much regtet. But faced with having to correct a very serious financial situation,
and with a Sunday collection that was costing much more than its weekday counterParts to provide yet which was used by fewer people, we had little alternative but to suspend it. However the Post Office said at the time of suspension that it would review the situation after a year. I can assure Mr Reichardt that this will be done.
P. H. Young Director, Public Relations, Post Office Central Headquarters, 23 Howland Street, London W1
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