Ofcom has fined Royal Mail a whopping £21 million for failing to meet its delivery targets in the last financial year.
Each year, it’s the watchdog’s job to look at and measure Royal Mail’s delivery performance against nationwide annual delivery targets, and for the 2024/25 season, the company was required to deliver 93% of First Class mail within one working day of collection, and 98.5% of Second Class mail within three working days.
If Royal Mail misses its annual targets, Ofcom will first consider evidence of any ‘exceptional circumstances’ beyond the company’s control, and whether it would have achieved its targets had those events not occurred.
However, even after accounting for extreme weather events, Royal Mail was still found to have fallen short of its targets… and this time, they’ve been fined their highest sum so far.
We have fined Royal Mail £21m for missing its 2024/25 delivery targets, without justification.
The company must now urgently publish, and deliver, a credible improvement plan.
This is the third time in a row that Ofcom has found the company to be in breach of its regulatory obligations, after it was first fined a substantial £5.6m in November 2023, and then a further £10.5m in December 2024.
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Royal Mail only delivered 77% of First Class mail and 92.5% of Second Class mail on time between April 2024 and March 2025.
Ofcom says it has therefore decided that the company breached its obligations by failing to provide ‘an acceptable level of service’ without justification, and took ‘insufficient and ineffective’ steps to try and prevent this failure.
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“Hiding behind the pandemic as a driving factor in failures at Royal Mail does not cut it.”
Royal Mail has been fined £21m by Ofcom failing to meet its delivery targets / Credit: Royal Mail
The watchdog says this is likely to have impacted millions of customers who did not get the service they paid for.
“Millions of important letters are arriving late, and people aren’t getting what they pay for when they buy a stamp,” explained Ian Strawhorne, who is the Director of Enforcement at Ofcom.
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“These persistent failures are unacceptable, and customers expect and deserve better.
“Royal Mail must rebuild consumers’ confidence as a matter of urgency, and that means making actual significant improvements, not more empty promises.
“We’ve told the company to publicly set out how it’s going to deliver this change, and we expect to start seeing meaningful progress soon. If this doesn’t happen, fines are likely to continue.”
Featured Image – Royal Mail
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Six teenage boys arrested following stabbing of 13-year-old in Rochdale town centre
Emily Sergeant
Six teenage boys have been arrested following the stabbing of a 13-year-old in Rochdale town centre over the weekend.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) explained that officers were called out to reports of a ‘serious assault’ near the Riverside Shopping Centre in central Rochdale on Saturday (29 August), and when they arrived on the scene, they found that a 13-year-old boy had been stabbed.
The young boy currently remains in hospital receiving treatment, while a police investigation into the incident is open and ongoing.
Two teenage boys were first arrested on suspicion of assault and possession of a bladed article on the same day the incident occurred (29 August), but have since been released on bail.
Officers then made four further arrests yesterday (31 August), again all teenage boys who were arrested on suspicion of assault and possession of a bladed article, with enquires ongoing.
A Section 60 and 60AA ‘stop and search’ authority was introduced in Rochdale town centre following the recent incidents in area and following reports of youths carrying weapons in the locality, and this has now been extended to 3pm today (Tuesday 1 September).
“This was a serious and sustained attack that could have had far more tragic consequences,” explained Detective Superintendent, Richard Hunt .”Our team of experienced detectives is working around the clock to understand exactly what happened, identify all those involved, and secure the strongest possible evidence.
“We will relentlessly pursue every lead available to us and will leave no stone unturned in bringing all those responsible before the courts.
“Community safety remains our absolute priority, and we are committed to ensuring those who seek to bring violence onto our streets are held fully accountable for their actions.”
Can you help? Anyone who witnessed the incident, was in the town centre at the time, or has any mobile phone, CCTV, or dashcam footage, is urged to come forward and speak to police on 101, quoting log 2750 of 29/08/2026, or using the LiveChat function on the GMP website.
Alternatively, you can contact Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.
Featured Image – GMP
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High School Musical at Lowry, Salford – a night spent reliving our childhood | Review
Amy Williams
What a night spent reliving our childhood.
Now, I don’t want to exaggerate or seem biased, considering this is one of my favourite film trilogies of all time, but this could be the best stage show I’ve seen in a long while.
We all know how High School Musical goes, right? Set at East High, we follow Troy and Gabriella (the star basketball player, and the geeky new girl) who meet over New Year, and then become ‘star-crossed lovers’ when back at school as they’re part of two different ‘cliques’.
The duo mess with the ‘Status Quo’ when they audition for the school musical. But will they stick to what they know? Or become stars of the stage? I’m sure you know the ending.
High School Musical is currently on stage at Lowry, Salford / Credit: Matt Crockett (Supplied)
From the costumes and the characters, to the memorable songs (there’s actually 52 songs in this production, including a mega mix at the end), they’ve kept right to the script of the films – and that’s exactly what we wanted to see.
Of course, the biggest throwback of them all is Kaycee Stroh – who originally featured as Martha Cox in the film trilogy – taking the role as Ms Darbus, and she was just as incredible as we expected her to be. And to see her do the iconic dance in the finale was unbelievable, 13-year-old Amy was screaming.
Also featuring Jason Donovan as Coach Bolton, Tobias Turley as Troy, Leonor Correia as Gabriella, Caitlin Tipping Sharpay, and Luke Bayer as Ryan, it was a proper impressive cast all round.
It’s a night to properly relive your mid-00s childhood / Credit: Matt Crockett (Supplied)
There was crowd interaction right from the off, as they taught the crowd a cheerleading routine to be included later in the show, plus for the finale, they had the lyrics on the big screen too so everyone could sing-along.
If we could go and see this show every single night, we would – it is absolutely brilliant.
Emily Sergeant -
15th October 2025 
