If you’re thinking of sending anything to the Official Olympic Sites or Westfield Stratford City think again.
No matter which courier you use, UPS is the only courier company who can freely deliver to these venues and they’re going to sting you for an additional £25.00 for handling the final mile delivery during the security lock down period. The security lock down period varies across the 111 Olympic venues, but can start as early as the 4th of June right through to the 14th of September.
“UPS is proud to be the Official Logistics and Express Delivery Supporter of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games” and “UPS can go that extra mile for you to ensure all your key shipments can be delivered directly into London 2012 venues” says the UPS marketing material, before breaking down the charge as a Final Mile charge of £5.00 plus an extortionate £20.00 additional security charge. They do give a discount on the Final Mile charge for multiple parcels, but it’s still £20.00 per parcel in the name of security.
Let’s be serious, every package going into or out of the country undergoes security checks. They don’t take your package to Heathrow airport and casually chuck it into the back of a Boeing 747 without making sure it’s not going to blow the plane out of the sky. You can send relatively heavy parcels to the other side of the world, with appropriate security checks, for what UPS are going to charge for moving your parcel a single mile. Oh and you’ll have to pay your normal courier their standard rate to drop your delivery off just down the road from the Olympic stadium. The £25.00 is on top of your normal costs.
LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) do of course allow any carrier to deliver to the Olympic venues…. provided the carrier is granted the proper accreditation and the deliveries are arranged through the venue MDS (Master Delivery Schedule) controlled by LOCOG. You need a minimum of 48 hours prior to the delivery to get on the MDS and when they arrive both vehicle and driver will be subject to security checks.
Realistically no courier company can get all their drivers operating close to the 111 venues through the accreditation. They also can’t give 48 hours notice as they won’t know when a parcel will need to be delivered. The only realistic option is for most courier companies will be to pass deliveries to UPS along with twenty five quid.
The Olympics is supposed to be a showcase for elite athletes to excel at the highest levels. It’s sold to us as a spectacle not to be missed and a once in a life time opportunity. In reality it appears to be an excuse for a few sponsors to gouge the rest of the country for as much money as possible. Think “Rip off Britain” on steroids.
When the delivery services were awarded to UPS Sebastian Coe said “Having one single supplier to handle the majority of our complex transportation and logistical needs will benefit everyone”.
Will it benefit the people in the Olympic village who might need a delivery of insulin or contact lenses? What about the athlete who has to shell out £25 for a parcel from well-wishers back home filled with homely treats? Replacements for lost mobile phones, travel documents… the list is endless.
11 Responses
I am only a few miles from the site & it is like a security nightmare.
If you try to park a car in the car park [for the shopping centre], your car goes through 3 check points before being allowed in.
I understood all parcels/shop deliveries are being sent to a Barking, Essex warehouse & re-dispatched into the site by UPS logistics, no matter who the original courier was.
It can be expected that almost all of the deliveries being made to Olympic Venues are being made to organisations that are actively involved in the Olympics. So will they be voluntarily bringing to the attention of their suppliers that such charges will be made and of course that they as part of the Olympics will pay any and all such charges?
I ask this as once an order is received and of course shipped to the Olympic Venue it is a bit late in the day to discover that there are extortionate charges on each and every delivery.
Off course we have been told ever since Seb Coe and his merry band of men lumbered the UK with the Olympics that it was going to be a great thing for the Country.
Vast amounts of money(that as we are broke we are always being told we do not have) have been spent. Numerous facilities have been built or rebuilt. But at the end instead of having made a Profit it can be confidently expected that the Country will be even more severely in debt.
Perhaps it should be called the “Rip Off Olympics”. Because it does appear that at every stage and at every level that is what it is.
It looks like UPS is trying to recoup any sponsorship money they spent on being the official logistics partner.
it’s beginning to look like all self employed couriers who get paid by the “completed job” will have to refuse to take any deliveries anywhere near an olympic venue or even anywhere inside central london. i personally am monitoring situation and if conducting a delivery takes forever, i suspect it will and the courier company i sub contract for. still pays me by the job and i can not earn a living london wage for 2 months. i will have to seek new employment.