Parcelforce depot purge starts • The first of 50 Parcelforce
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depots will close next month as the company moves into the final phase of a rationalisation plan designed to save £16m a year.
By March the state-owned parcels giant expects to have closed sites in at least five towns, with improvements to its express and standard parcel services. At 20 other sites express and standard service depots will merge.
By the end of March 1994 the depot network will have been cut by 30% to about 120.
Combining the express and standard services is expected to cut costs 1:13 £16m a year for an outlay of under £10m. The two services handle some 200 million parcels a year.
No compulsory redundancies are expected—increased demand for express services, including Datapost, have increased by 250% in the past year.
The integration will allow Parcelforce to slow down its fleet growth while increasing its use of panel vans. But full integration of the two services has been put on ice as the future ownership of Parcelforce remains in question. Privatisation plans have led the Government to freeze the investment needed to set up most of the combined sorting centres.