The British Post Office is franchising its last remaining branches
The state-owned operation dates back to the 17th century.
Whether you trace it back to when Charles I opened the postal service to the public in 1635, or when Oliver Cromwell established the General Post Office in 1657, or when Charles II established it all over again three years after that, the Post Office is inarguably one of the oldest institutions still operating in the UK today.
Post haste
Now — not far off four centuries later and serving mostly as a network of hubs, tucked away in the back of bigger shops, to pick up or return online orders — the state-run business is shedding the last 108 branches it owned and operated across Britain. Like the vast majority of its outposts, it plans to franchise the stores in a move that one union secretary called “full privatisation via the back door.”
While this may feel like déjà vu owing to the recent news of Royal Mail being taken over by Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínskýu, the Post Office and Royal Mail are two separate entities. The latter was first taken private in 2013, as the government has been at pains to point out.
Reported interest from big names like Ryman and Tesco is unlikely to quell fears about privatization, workers losing their jobs, and people’s local post offices shutting down (see here for a map showing the affected branches). Zooming out, however, shows that closures are nothing new for the institution since the turn of the digital age.
Dead letters
Over the last 50 years, as you might expect since the concept of sending a letter is as alien to some as the fax machine or watching films on VHS, the number of Post Office branches has more than halved, stagnating around the 12,000 mark, largely thanks to a £1.34 billion injection from the government in 2010 to keep the tally above 11,500.
Last year, the Post Office made almost £200 million more from its money and financial services, such as its insurance, travel money, and banking offerings, than it did from mail (£521 million vs. £319 million)... a clear sign that its role in modern life has changed dramatically.
Interestingly, Alan Bates, the man at the heart of the Post Office scandal — one of the biggest controversies in the institution’s history, dramatized by ITV in 2024 — suggested the “dead duck” business should be sold to Amazon for £1 in High Court last February.
