Consignia has admitted that few people have signed up for its trial postal service, which charges people for guaranteed early morning postal deliveries.

The company has been testing three trial charges of �5, �10 or �14 a week for post to be delivered before 9am.

But report suggested that only one person has signed up for the service since trials began in 14 areas on 15 July.

Consignia said it was too early to judge the scheme.

The pilot schemes are part of a three year shake-up at crisis-hit Consignia, which is already losing money and fears the eventual loss of its monopoly of UK postal delivery services.

'Too high'

"The trials have not been running very long. We want to wait and see what happens," a Consignia spokeswoman said.

"We were not expecting huge numbers of people and some of the trials are being phased in," she added.

The charge is too high

Postwatch

Consignia - which will change its name to Royal Mail Group at the end of the year - hopes to save �1bn over the next three years as part of its restructuring.

It is thought that - if successful - the charge alone will save the company �350m.

However, consumer watchdog, Postwatch, said it believed only one customer had signed up for the scheme nationwide.

"It is early days of the trial but we are not surprised. The charge is too high," a spokesman for the organisation said.

In Llanelli, west Wales, where the scheme is in the third week of a five-week phasing-in period, no customers have signed up in an area of 35,700 postal addresses.

Pilot plan

Consignia has already announced the second post is being abolished in favour of one delivery a day.

The changes being piloted mean only businesses receiving more than 20 letters a day will get their post delivered between 7am and 9am.

Domestic households will get it between 9am and midday.

Those who want to receive post before 9am will have to pay the weekly fee.

The pilot areas where the charges have been introduced include:

• Crawley, West Sussex
• Bow, east London
• Edinburgh Dell
• Sheringham, Norfolk
• east Manchester
• Llanelli, Wales
• Newbury, Berks
• Newhaven, East Sussex
• Loughborough, Leicestershire
• Halifax, West Yorkshire
• Plymouth, Devon
• Ballymena, Northern Ireland
• Thirsk, north Yorkshire
• St Helens, Merseyside.