RELEASE yesterday of the regulator’s final report on the level of competition that Guernsey Post should be exposed to appears to have polarised opinion on whether his decision was the right or wrong one.

The bulk mailers do not think the Office of Utility Regulation has gone far enough, while some deputies appear to be itching to take the matter to the Assembly to clip the regulator’s wings or, as they see it, saving GPL from financial disaster and the taxpayer from having to bail it out.

Yet somewhere in the centre of these extremes lies an acceptable balance.

The OUR has come out firmly behind the bulk mailers because it believes their contribution to the economy, to Treasury and Resources’ tax-take, to employment and ‘soft’ areas like sponsorship and charitable work has been undervalued.

But it also has a duty to ensure GPL can meet its universal service obligations, which the postal authority clearly won’t if the OUR’s demands for cost-cutting and efficiencies are unattainable or fatally damage the utility.

Another way of looking at this, however, is to ask what sort of a postal service islanders want.

For bulk mailers, price is key. If those costs cannot be contained sufficiently while maintaining six-day island-wide deliveries, should Saturdays be dropped?

For many households, the postman calling a couple of times a week would probably be sufficient as long as their sub-post office remains open and the roadside postbox stays where it is. Customer-facing businesses would want daily post and a more bespoke service might be possible if the USO was relaxed.

Competition of necessity stimulates creativity and what all users want is a service that is as cheap and reliable as possible.

Guernsey Post’s biggest concern is that the OUR’s involvement over competition and cost-cutting means that it will not be able to meet its daily service obligations.

That may well be the case – but it may also be the opportunity to review that obligation.

After all, stopping daily doorstep deliveries of milk was unthinkable. Until it happened.