Wolverhampton-based greeting card designer asks people in the West Midlands to help protect the postal service

Dean Morris Cards was launched in 1999 when a second-class stamp was just 19p and first-class postage was 26p. Dean took his childhood passion for hand-making cards for loved ones to create his own greeting cards business shortly after graduating from Wolverhampton University with a degree in Fine Art. What started as a passion project soon became a full-time gig and, 26 years on, Dean still designs every card himself from his Lego-filled home office in Wolverhampton.  

Dean relies on Royal Mail and is asking people across the West Midlands to sign the petition and protect the second-class post because he thinks what’s proposed will have a serious impact on small businesses and their customers.

Last month Royal Mail and regulator Ofcom proposed changes to Royal Mail’s legal obligations (the USO) that would end Saturday second class delivery and cut back delivery days to a minimum of two per week.

Even though last month Ofcom confirmed it had begun a consultation on the changes that wouldn’t end until April, it gave the green light to Royal Mail’s premature trials to end Saturday second class delivery in over 30 locations this month.  

These pilots already reduce the service for over a million households, and Ofcom and has made clear permanent nationwide changes can be made without any involvement from MPs.

Dean Morris said: “Ofcom needs to do more to protect customers and the greeting cards sector at large. As an industry, we had a taste of the impact slashing second-class delivery dates will mean during the postal strike in 2022. The Royal Mail providing a service which means a card can take weeks to arrive, as it did during the postal strike, affected my mental health, my customers’ perception of my business and my website’s turnover.

“At least then it was about our posties fighting for a decent wage, but this time round the Royal Mail just want to make money for their shareholders at the expense of businesses like mine, as well as the quality and reliability of the service their customers pay for.  

“My fear is that the Royal Mail will chip away at the quality of the second-class postal service until it is effectively unusable and becomes obsolete – which will leave consumers with the choice to either use increasingly unaffordable first-class stamps or simply choose not to send cards at all.”  

In October last year, Royal Mail raised the price of a first-class stamp from £1.35 to £1.65 – an inflation-busting 22 per cent increase that was the fifth hike in less than three years.

A first-class stamp is now almost twice the price of a second-class stamp, which only remains affordable at 85p because it has the protection of being pegged to inflation by regulator Ofcom.

And the UK’s Greeting Card Association, which represents over 500 publishers, retailers, agents, specialist suppliers and distributors in an industry worth over £1.5bn to the UK economy, said it feared the rise could result in killing off affordable letters post for good, adding further strain on pressured high streets.

Sending a physical card is a simple, joyful and inexpensive way to create a tangible connection between people that builds and nurtures relationships. An average card costs £1.89 and it’s still only 85p, thanks to the second-class stamp, to send it anywhere in the country.

However Royal Mail continues to fall short of the delivery service standards set for it by Ofcom. In December it fined Royal Mail £10.5m after failing to meet delivery standards during the 2023/4 financial year. confirming that consumers were increasingly switching away from First to Second post, with cost being the main driver.

From April 2023 to March 2024, Royal Mail only delivered 74.7 per cent of First Class mail on time and 92.7 per cent of Second Class mail on time.