Royal Mail is preparing to auction off four former delivery offices across Scotland in what critics fear could mark the beginning of a systematic asset stripping programme under foreign ownership.
Auction House Scotland has listed the properties for sale on 27th November, with locations in Anstruther, Bearsden, Kirriemuir, and Biggar all going under the hammer as part of what the auction house is calling “a first-class investment opportunity.”
The Four Properties Up for Grabs
The Bearsden Delivery Office on Milngavie Road, close to the town centre and adjacent to the busy train station, carries a rateable value of £29,250 and is being marketed for its “significant appeal for conversion or redevelopment.”
In Anstruther, the Station Road delivery office sits on a 0.34-acre site with approximately 281 square metres of space, whilst the Kirriemuir property on Reform Street spans around 249 square metres across ground and first floors.
The largest of the four is the Biggar Delivery Office at 82 High Street, which covers approximately 365 square metres on a substantial 2.15-acre site right in the town centre.
Kirriemuir’s property comes with a leaseback arrangement allowing Royal Mail to continue operating from the premises on peppercorn terms for up to nine months whilst they complete their exit from the building.
Consolidation or Asset Stripping?
Whilst Royal Mail has sold delivery offices before as part of routine property portfolio management, having four Scottish properties listed for auction simultaneously raises questions about the scale and pace of consolidation taking place north of the border.
The properties represent the latest phase in a pattern of delivery office consolidation across Scotland, with services being merged into larger facilities before the vacated buildings are disposed of.
Under normal circumstances, this might represent sensible operational efficiency. But the timing is particularly awkward given Royal Mail’s current trajectory under foreign ownership.
The Foreign Ownership Context Nobody Can Ignore
The auction comes just seven months after Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský’s £3.6 billion takeover of Royal Mail completed in April, loading the 508-year-old postal service with approximately £5 billion in debt.
That enormous debt mountain requires substantial annual interest payments, creating intense pressure to extract cash from the business wherever possible – and Royal Mail’s extensive property portfolio represents one of the most obvious sources of ready money.
Critics had warned at the time of the takeover that the highly-leveraged acquisition could follow the playbook seen with Thames Water and Asda: assets stripped to service debt whilst operational performance deteriorates.
The company returned to profit earlier this year, but achieved this primarily through service cuts and staff reductions rather than operational improvements – raising questions about whether financial engineering has replaced genuine investment in the postal service.
Delivery Performance Continues to Collapse
The property sales come against a backdrop of catastrophically poor delivery performance that shows no sign of improvement.
Royal Mail was slapped with a record £21 million fine by Ofcom in November for delivering just 77% of first-class mail on time, falling spectacularly short of the required 93% target.
This marked the third consecutive year the company has been fined for missing delivery targets, with total penalties now exceeding £37 million since 2023.
Performance data from earlier in the year showed only 75.9% of first-class letters arriving within the required one working day between March and June – meaning nearly one in four first-class letters failed to arrive on time despite customers paying £1.70 per stamp following April’s price increase.
MP Kate Osborne, who worked for Royal Mail for 25 years before entering Parliament, has accused the company of “deliberately missing targets, cutting staff from delivery offices & missing targets to ‘prove’ their Universal Service Obligation no longer works.”
Service Cuts Already Approved
Royal Mail has already secured Ofcom’s approval to dramatically reduce the Universal Service Obligation that has protected customers for decades.
Saturday second-class deliveries have been scrapped entirely, with the company now delivering second-class post only on alternate weekdays – changes that are expected to save up to £300 million annually by simply not bothering to deliver mail when it’s inconvenient for the bottom line.
Industry sources suggest Royal Mail is preparing to approach Ofcom with fresh requests for further cuts to the Universal Service Obligation, though the Communication Workers Union has intensified opposition after finding pilot delivery schemes to be unworkable.
What Happens to the Communities?
Mandi Cooper, Managing Director of Auction House Scotland, put a positive spin on the disposals: “These former delivery offices all have the potential to be redeveloped and to continue to serve their communities for years to come.”
But for the communities in Anstruther, Bearsden, Kirriemuir, and Biggar, the sale of local delivery offices represents another step in the centralisation of postal services that makes local operations more remote and potentially less responsive to community needs.
The consolidation pattern across Scotland means fewer local bases for postal workers, longer travel times to depots, and potentially reduced service quality as operations become more distant from the areas they’re supposed to serve.
The Pattern That Should Worry Everyone
Selling individual delivery offices as part of routine property management is one thing.
Auctioning off four Scottish properties simultaneously whilst delivery performance collapses, service obligations are slashed, and a foreign owner services billions in takeover debt is something else entirely.
Whether this represents the beginning of a broader asset disposal programme or simply coincidental timing with legitimate consolidation remains to be seen.
But for those who warned that Křetínský’s debt-laden takeover would inevitably lead to asset stripping to service the enormous borrowing, four delivery offices going under the hammer within months of the foreign ownership completing does little to alleviate those concerns.
The auction takes place on 27th November. By then, we’ll know whether buyers see these properties as redevelopment opportunities serving their communities, or simply as cheap assets from a cash-strapped postal service under pressure to generate revenue however it can.
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