A Member Asked….

John Thame asked to know more about unfranked envelopes often marked TNT Post Postage Paid. (See following example.)

These mail items are part of what is called Downstream Access and this service was introduced in early 2003. It allows operators, other than Royal Mail, to transport mail throughout the UK to Royal Mail’s Mail Centres. The final ‘walk’ sorting is completed by Royal Mail staff and then the mail proceeds via the normal doorstep delivery.

TNT and UK Mail seem to be the biggest players. UK Mail’s services are for two-day delivery services an they collect and/or pre-sort mail from their business customers on day one, deposit the mail with Royal Mail at one of the 1400 delivery offices on the morning of day two for Royal Mail to deliver on day three, which explains the time delays seen. BT use Downstream Access to send out their bills and some of the banks and indeed government departments utilise this method, as John has reported seeing with Inland Revenue.

Royal Mail's latest figures (May 2007), show that approximately 273 million items of mail per month are now handled under these access arrangements. Mail being sent this way has to conform to certain agreed conditions and it will be given a boxed handstamp saying ‘ Received out of course’ if something has gone wrong. I received a routine letter from my bank that had been sent to Norwich sorting office by mistake and then sent on to Maidstone.