THE Royal Mail's justification for its new price rises has fallen on deaf ears at one Worcestershire company.

Lucy Dell owns earplugsbypost.com, a specialist earplug business, based near Tenbury Wells, which stocks more than 40 different types of earplug. Because earplugs are light but bulky, the first class postage on a small pack of earplugs has risen from 32p to £1, an increase of more than 200 per cent.

"The Government tells us that inflation is about 2.5 per cent but a price rise of 200 per cent tells a different story," said Lucy.

"We cannot absorb the whole of this huge rise so we have had to scrap all our old price lists and print new ones, a further expense.

"We are now looking at moulded plastic packaging to try to keep our packs under the new 25mm thickness limit.

"This type of specialist packaging is expensive, but would be cost effective if it cuts the postage cost from £1 to 44p, which is the new cost for a large letter that is less than 25mm thick. There is also the effect on the environment to consider.

This price rise means that to send this pack of earplugs to Birmingham now costs £1. But the same pack of earplugs can be sent to France, by Royal Mail, for just 72p. Why does the Post Office charge more to deliver something to Birmingham that it does to deliver it to France?"

The Royal Mail's new pricing particularly affects light items that are more than 25mm thick.

For example, an envelope that is six inches long, four inches wide and one inch thick is now classed as a packet even if it is very light.

Under the new pricing structure, the minimum cost of posting a packet is £1 (first class) or 84p (second class). Previously, this item would have cost only 32p to post first class, or 23p to post second class.

Leominster MP Bill Wiggin expressed concern over Mrs Dell's situation. "Mail-order businesses have an important role to play in sustaining the rural economy, so anything that threatens their viability is worrying," he said.