Postplan scheme for PO
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• Parcels carrier Postplan is awaiting a reply from trade and industry minister Eric Forth to its proposal to open 80% of the Post Office's forecast growth business to the private sector on a franchise basis.
The company, part of Interlink Express, has come up with the plan because it feels the Government will not abolish the Post Office monopoly totally due to fears that private firms would cream-off profitable routes.
However, a fresh hint that the Government might allow private carriers to compete if industrial disputes persist in the run-up to Christmas has come from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
She told MPs last week that disruptions to the mail had a damaging effect on small businesses, and warned that if they continue the Government would have private carriers' current a minimum postal charge abolished.
Postplan admits that only a small part of the Post Office's "rapidly expanding" business is likely to be hived-off. Managing director Martin Peacock says a Department of Trade and Industry-appointed commission could regulate franchise areas and set limits on the amount of business any private company could take from the Royal Mail. The Post Office would be left with 20% of its growth business by right — as well as business won in competition against private carriers.
Other firms, such as TNT, have been demanding the right to compete with the Post Office on the open market by ending the El minimum rate, but Peacock warns that private firms simply complaining about the Post Office's shortcomings will not help the industry: "Under our scheme the Post Office would be assured of growth and profitability in the cities as well as in the countryside," he says.