The review of the Royal Mail business is due to be announced tomorrow, options include a partial privatisation and the removal of the universal service obligation. Apparently postal volumes are currently declining by 6-7% per annum and that is before the impact of the current recession. At long last the switch to e-mail seems to be really gaining momentum backed by paperless billling initiatives and the declining effectiveness of mass mailshots however well targeted (aka junk mail).
Does this matter to UK Geo? Perhaps if the changes impact postcodes. One option which would no doubt please many would be for the postcode dataset to be put into the public domain as part of any partial privatisation and reduction in universal service. Another option which might cause some concern would be if a new private sector partner decided that postcodes weren’t to be the basis for sorting and delivering mail, after all most other countries successfully deliver mail without maintaining close to 2 million postcodes.
