If Royal Mail stopped messing about with solar-powered postboxes, maybe it could deliver our letters on time

Telegraph

11-04-2025

Back when I was a cub reporter, it was an unspoken rule that all stories about postal services must contain the phrase 'red letter day'.
Or, if it was some sort of charity event, 'posties put their best feet forward and delivered a first-class service' as they tossed pancakes at a care home or gave sports day at a children's centre their 'stamp of approval'.
It's hard to believe there was once a time when mention of the good old Royal Mail evoked warm fuzzies rather than Munchian howls of existential angst.
These days it's a byword for sclerotic inefficiency, operating what is literally a postcode lottery as to whether householders receive no post at all or a great, big tatty bundle that has been accumulating at the depot for weeks.
Missed birthday cards and mislaid hospital appointments, traffic fines that arrive too late to appeal and most recently at Woods Towers, a reconditioned mobile phone that somehow went AWOL even though it was being tracked.
Royal Mail, which posted losses of £348 million last year, has repeatedly failed to meet its targets; last December the company was fined a record £10.5 million after delivering more than one in four first-class letters late.
It's been a long decline from trusted institution to basket case. In 2001 it underwent a rebrand to embrace the meaningless 'Consignia', before performing a humiliating reverse ferret 16 months later. And still it haemorrhaged money.
Now, just as Ofcom plans to compel Royal Mail to deliver virtually all first-class letters within three days, the postal service is bleating that would be 'too expensive'.
Expensive? Try paying out £17 for 10 first-class stamps, mate. While parcels are a growth area, it has gone from delivering 20 billion letters annually two decades ago to just 6.6 billion today.
And how does the Royal Mail respond to the gloom? By unveiling five novelty solar-powered post boxes, each with a built-in barcode reader and – ooh, look – a hatch to accept parcels.
As diversionary tactics go, it's another toe-curling failure. I fully support solar energy – if the company had installed rooftop solar panels on its offices and depots, it would at least show a common sense willingness to slash its energy costs.
But hyperventilating about five 'trial' post boxes is an insult to our intelligence and bespeaks an organisation that hasn't a clue how to rescue itself from the quagmire.
The adage 'do one job and do it well' springs to mind. I have no idea what is so complicated about delivering the mail on time, but I do know that solar-operated post boxes are not going to solve the problem.