Royal mail are making approx 1.5 million pound profit per day. Not bad in a recession eh?
There are more than enough parcels for everyone, not 1 company would have the resources to deliver them all.
It is not up to royal mail to sell the sorting office, the only way it would be vacated is if the council pay for a brand spanking new facility and how likely is that?
The days of finishing at 11 are over because posties now do longs and shorts, some days not starting till 7 in the morning.
red666bear, I assume that you are a postie at Marple, or have a close family member who is a postie at Marple, from your posts on the subject, but I think you are allowing yourself to be a bit blinkered when discussing this. Your assertion that "the only way it would be vacated is if the council pay for a brand spanking new facility and how likely is that?" is clearly incorrect. Obviously given that they have a lease with a reasonable amount of time left to run, they wouldn't just walk away from the Marple Sorting Office, but there are many scenarios where it would make sense for the Post Office to vacate. Most of them involve the exchange of money and/or premises, and, unfortunately for you, some of them involve the Post Office deciding that they no longer need Marple, but it is far from impossible as you keep claiming it to be.
Where there's a will (and a big pot o' cash), there's a way.
That said, as we've covered in other threads on here, Chadwick Street is not an attractive site for retail development as it is poorly located, and has too many issues that would need to be overcome. But, if a major player such as Tesco, M&S, etc, etc, wanted to develop there, I'm sure an accommodation would be reached with the Post Office over them vacating Marple Sorting Office.