CONSIGNIA is to re-think plans to charge many customers £14 a week to deliver post before 9am after its chairman admitted he had not been told about the proposals.

Allan Leighton said the pilot projects for the scheme, which come into effect today, would now examine three options - of charging £5, £10 or £14 a week.

Interviewed on BBC1's Breakfast with Frost, Mr Leighton acknowledged that he had not been briefed on the £14-a-week plan for small businesses before news of it broke in the media last week.

He said: "We are having a re-think, because on one hand I am trying to put a price increase through on stamps so I can argue that the first-class stamp is the best value you can get in Britain today.

"One of the things we have to do for our customers is we have to deliver some value, and I think that £14 is a lot of money for small businesses.

"So, the point of these pilots is to learn how to do this properly, move to one delivery and then find a way in which we can cover costs but at the same time deliver some value."

Thirsk, in North Yorkshire, is one of 14 pilot areas in the UK exploring new ways of improving the postal service, including the contentious scrapping of the second post, which Royal Mail believes will save £350m a year.

Mr Leighton acknowledged Consignia was in dire straits, saying: "It is a chronic failure - full-stop. You cannot imagine a company which is a monopoly, has £6bn of sales, yet manages to lose £1.2m a day.

"There is a cast of things that have gone wrong over a period of time. The most important thing is it cannot continue, because the business will go bust."