To be annoyed at people who live in a London Borough but insist they don't (i.e Im in Surrey, Kent etc)

[Rosehip10]

As in people in places such as Richmond, Kingston (insisting they live in Surrey) or places such as Bromley (insisting they are in Kent).

These places may used to have in a different county but have been part of greater London and a London Borough since 1965.

Is is snobbery? They usually drone only about postal towns which also no longer exist.

Where as I think of post people as benign friendly types who want to be helpful!

I don't think the people at the coal-face delivering letters write the FAQs though!

I'm sure most post people don't care as long as it's legible. I care, because I don't straightforward data being used incorrectly. People who put counties in addresses are wrong and annoy me.

People who put counties in addresses are wrong and annoy me.

Only if you think Royal Mail talk in subtexts.

Earlier in the thread you said that the correct way for you to write your address was

Road
Village
Town
postcode

Plenty of villages (most?) aren't in a town or city. However, you seem to think that Royal Mail need to know the details of both your village and town, but have some kind of phobia of counties being mentioned on a letter. This doesn't make sense.

However, you seem to think that Royal Mail need to know the details of both your village and town, but have some kind of phobia of counties being mentioned on a letter.

Of course it makes sense. I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs of how mail is distributed but there are sorting offices. The format of addresses is presumably designed to make this as efficient as possible so it is based on postal towns. Where that postal town includes an area of outlying villages it is clearly useful to use these to divvy up actual sacks of post.

The postcode and town combination provide the right detail RM need. Village names provide additional detail they need. Counties do no such thing.

It's their data to have formatted in whatever way they seem most useful. That way they deem most useful is the correct way because they own the data.

Where that postal town includes an area of outlying villages it is clearly useful to use these to divvy up actual sacks of post.

Surely the postcode gives that information?

The format of addresses is presumably designed to make this as efficient as possible so it is based on postal towns. Where that postal town includes an area of outlying villages it is clearly useful to use these to divvy up actual sacks of post.

Except perhaps not so efficient and a little confusing if you are one of the many other private delivery services that isn't Royal Mail.

Surely the postcode gives that information?

Indeed. And a letter addressed without either the village or town but with the postcode would probably reach me. But it's not my data. It's RM's data and they have told me the format that is correct so I use that.

They aren't the address police.

To be fair, they probably have a better claim than the ‘you can’t say you live in London because it makes me feel less special’ brigade.

I remember a thread on here a couple of years back where someone was trying to tell me that Stratford, the place where the LONDON Olympics were held, was not in London.

To be fair the sailing was held in Weymouth. Definitely not London.

And IIRC the sailing - or was it the equestrian? - for the Beijing Olympics was held in Hong Kong which some would argue isn't even in the same country. Also we had the road cycling in parts of deepest Surrey. So I think we can discount the Olympics as a criterion.

I'm still intrigued as to why it matters to the OP so much...

@stcharlotte most threads on here are about people's own thoughts and interests and to see what others think. Why post if you dislike the issue or don't care? As this is now page 28 of 28 it looks like many have enjoyed contributing to this debate.

If you were born in Middlesex or Surrey, that doesn’t change just because administrative boundaries have changed in the meantime.

I'm afraid it does change. If you were born in Estonia in 1970, for years you could have said you were born in the Soviet Union. Because Estonia was just a part of the USSR, not an independent country But if you said that now, people would think you were crackers, because it hadn't existed for years (although Middlesex hasn't existed for even longer). You'd say you were born in Estonia.

Sorry Dappled, you are right, and I was wrong, post towns clearly exist, and I have been able to ignore that because I have only ever lived in a place where the 'post town' (which could also be a city of village) and my location matched. However, they are even more misleading than post codes, which I suspect is why Royal Mail don't go out of their way to advertise their existence, given that all necessary information is contained in the postcode.

They simply say:

Next line can be used to name the local area or village name.

Next line should be for the town. Write the name of the town in capital (upper case) letters.

without any explanation of what they mean by 'town'.

There is indeed a subtext and it is:

"The address information we provide on our database allocates districts to sorting offices, but may not be an accurate guide to location and may infact be misleading. We have allocated the village of Tiptoe in Hampshire to the 'post town' of Lymington (6 miles away), although the closest town is New Milton (2 miles away). Also please note that while Tiptoe has a Southampton postcode it's actually much closer to Bournemouth.

While we are apologising we would also like to apologise for suggesting that 'Sewardstone Road, London, E4' might be an easy walk from 'Bow Common Lane London E3' or that Sewardstone isn't in Essex. We also know that London SE17 is randomly between SE1 and SE5, but please, can we not talk about that?

Yes, on reflection Queens Road Richmond TW10 and Queens Road Richmond DL10 are 250 miles apart, and that isn't really adequately conveyed by the address provided on our postcode database. Do please also provide county details. The world will still spin on its axis if you write 'Richmond, Surrey', it could be helpful it the TW or DL get smudged, and everyone knows what you mean.

To be honest to find your address we only need your house name or number, road and postcode. Everything else is additional to our needs and the "post town" information we provide could be confusing for anybody trying to find your address. You can reach Tiptoe without going through the Lymington Delivery office. We didn't really think things through before we sold all this confusing information to 3rd parties. Sorry."

You'd say you were born in Estonia.

Even if you limit place to political entities and states, Angela Merkel wasn't somehow not born in East Germany because the wall came down. You can't erase history.

However, I don't think places can only be defined according to currently existing administrative areas. The Isle of Purbeck didn't vanish because 'Purbeck Distric council' was integrated into 'Dorset Unitary Authority'.

londonist.com/2015/08/why-is-there-no-ne-or-s-london-postcode-district

The erasure of the NE district was a lot more controversial, according to Kearney. The Post Office closed the NE district in 1867 and the E district absorbed its residents. Fearing a backlash, the Post Office didn't actually tell the residents that their new postcode was E. People still addressed letters to NE. The only change was that NE letters were sorted along with E letters on arriving at the Post Office.

This is such a strangely fascinating topic!

@Rosehip10

I'm sorry if I didn't word that properly.

Given I've posted about half a dozen times already on this thread, I obviously am interested and am enjoying the debate.

But, in view of the vehemence of some of your replies, this is clearly important to you and that's what I'm genuinely intrigued about (or nosey if you prefer ).

However, they are even more misleading than post codes, which I suspect is why Royal Mail don't go out of their way to advertise their existence, given that all necessary information is contained in the postcode

How do they not advertise them? The easily accessible, searchable address database lists them as part of each address.

All the rest of your subtext still relates to telling people where you live as general information and/or visiting you which is not the same as posting something. I've only ever been talking about the latter.

I’m just going to point out the town of Milborne Port.

Addresses there will be

1 High Street
Milborne Port
SHERBORNE
DT9 5XX

Now given that the postal town of Sherborne is in Dorset and it has a Dorchester post code most people would assume it to be in Dorset. It is not, it is in Somerset.
Another case where the postal address tells us nothing of the administrative district unless you put county in the address.

Looking for houses in Milborne Port on Rightmove half of them are listed as Somerset and half as Dorset. You could get quite far into buying a house before you realised it was in a different county to where you first thought.

Eh?
A lot of Surrey has a KT postcode because Kingston is the hub, KT1, so your point is a bit ridiculous.

I've always lived in South London (SW postcode). In recent years I moved to a different South London borough, again with an SW postcode. When my H and I bought our house, we moved 2 streets away, and acquired a Surrey postcode.

The walk to the tube is an extra 3 mins, we have an 0208 telephone number, vote for London mayor, still live the same London Borough, still use the same services GP, dentist, hospital etc as when we lived 2 streets down and had an SW postcode.

When we moved, if I'd told our friends and family we were moving to Surrey, once they'd picked themselves up off the floor from laughing, they'd have accused us of taking leave of our senses and having delusions of grandeur!

I’ve lived in Barking (although was technically classed as Ilford) and Dagenham. So boroughs of Barking and Dagenham, and Redbridge. Both London boroughs. Postcodes IG, and RM.
I consider both these places East London, although have been told many times they’re not as they don’t have an E postcode.
They do however have an 0208 phone number, and red buses and London Underground tube stations. They also vote in London elections.
I remember someone insisting it wasn’t London because I had an RM postcode being shocked I had an 0208 number.

All in all, there’s overlap. I did hear a few years ago that Dagenham were all getting new E postcodes, wonder what happened to that, probably too expensive

How do they not advertise them?

'Pass on your postcode' was a massive campaign when postcodes were introduced. Royal Mail have never insisted on postal towns. A letter with a postcode addressed to Tiptoe, Hampshire will not travel more slowly than a letter addressed to Tiptoe, Lymington.

All the rest of your subtext still relates to telling people where you live as general information and/or visiting you which is not the same as posting something

Royal Mail sells their database to third parties who provide location finding software. A postcode may be able to locate a specific street (although sometimes the area it covers is quite wide), but it's misleading to supply data that implies that additional data like 'post town' is relevant to location.

@Lifecraft - someone can say they were born in the USSR, we all know about it and where it is. Actually they would most likely have said Estonia back when it was the USSR, unless they were in the small percentage of ethnic Russians, then they would most likely say then and now that they were born in Russia. Where do you think the independence movements in the Baltic states came from if it weren't that individuals retain their cultural sense of belonging long after they are subsumed into a larger state? Why do you think only East Germany merged into Germany? What do you think the Kurds are doing now if not trying to get back to "their land", regardless of who recognises or falls to recognise it as such after so many years?

People's sense of their heritage and their place in the world doesn't dissipate because someone in the post office redraws a line, nor because they suddenly become liable to pay tax to the London Assembly. They toe the line on paying those taxes, they vote as required for the politicians, they accept their London Borough Council; but if they want to call themselves Middlesex, Surrey, Kent or Essex that's because it's the cultural identity they've chosen. It harms nobody, it demonstrates people's understanding of their own home and it's a nod to history that should be upheld with pride.

#FreeTheHomeCounties #MiddlesexRevival #SurreySetToRights #EssexRedemption #KentRestoration

Looking for houses in Milborne Port on Rightmove half of them are listed as Somerset and half as Dorset.

Yes, Rightmove seem to use the Royal Mail database and it is misleading.

@mrex so someone who lives in Dublin can say they live in the UK as it was part of it prior to 1922? Times and countries and indeed counties change.

@Rosehip10 - please see Northern Ireland for details of how different people living just one or two streets apart can have varying views on that topic.

A letter with a postcode addressed to Tiptoe, Hampshire will not travel more slowly than a letter addressed to Tiptoe, Lymington

I don't care! I don't know how many times I can say it. I consider the format of addresses as provided by the RM database to be correct for posting and addressing. Any deviation of that annoys me because it is incorrect. Any of your other examples are not about posting and are therefore irrelevant to me.