Wem lose postcode battle over Shrewsbury addresses
Monday 21st November 2011, 11:00AM GMT.
Campaigners in Wem have lost their battle to have Shrewsbury removed from the town’s postal addresses, it was revealed today.
Royal Mail bosses said they had no intention of making changes to their system – in which all letters for Wem include Shrewsbury in their address – despite residents complaining post regularly goes missing.
The town council wrote to Royal Mail detailing the problems and called for changes to be made. But their plea was today turned down.
In a letter to the town council, Joann Doyle, address management unit advisor at the Royal Mail, said it would not be removing Shrewsbury from Wem addresses.
The letter said: “As Shrewsbury is the post town we will not delete it from the postal addresses.
“Royal Mail circulates mail by way of a post town, usually the main town in the area, and recognises changes to post towns affect a large number of addresses and therefore have implications for many householders and businesses.”
Councillors claim a lot of people outside the area thought Wem was a part of Shrewsbury rather than being a separate town nine miles away.
Councillor Peggy Carson, of Wem Town Council, said: “We have received a letter from Royal Mail who said they have no intention of making the changes to the address. I think that’s wrong. Lots of people’s mail has been getting lost and going to the wrong addresses in Shrewsbury.
“Town councillors have received lots of reports of this happening from people in the town.
“Ellesmere is in north Shropshire and has Shropshire on its address, but Wem has Shrewsbury. This is wrong because Wem is a town in its own right.
“Despite the letter I don’t think the town council will let it drop.”
Councillors are due to discuss the response from Royal Mail at their town council meeting on Thursday in Edinburgh House at 7.15pm.
Most Commented
- Clampdown on Shrewsbury chuggers
- Bishop's gay marriage views do nothing to support bible teachings
- Planners ordered to stay on Newport visit bus
- Letter: Angered by close encounter of the furred kind
- Letter: Alcohol price plans annoy me
- Shrewsbury’s broadband speed one of slowest in UK
- Letter: No sense in overseas job adverts
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
Wem should be greateful of being on the same address as such a great town as Shrewsbury. Brings a bit of class the the area
Report abuse
A bit snobbish that post – All they want is to get their post delivered to their houses.
Perhaps you’re grateful to have your surname associated with French ladies.
Report abuse
Shrewsbury (the biggest place on the planet! (in it’s own mind!)
Report abuse
this message board goes from the sublime to the ridiculous – “in its own mind” – since when has Shrewsbury had an opinion. it’s a town, just like Wem’s a town and lots of people that live in both places have more pressing things to worry about than the fine detail of postal addresses.
Report abuse
Surely not as unfortunate as the poor folk of Bridgnorth whom the Royal Mail / GPO or whoever it was at the time, lumbered them with a Wolverhampton postcode !!!
We could do a sort of barter with Wem; they can take the word Shrewsbury out and we’ll have it ….. 123 Any Street, Telford, Shrewsbury …. that’ll set the cat amongst the pigeons !!!
On an even less serious note, no wonder their mail keeps getting delayed / going missing if it’s all passing through a sorting office in Strathclyde as per the picture at the top of this article
Report abuse
personally i agree with the earlier post, people would not chose to have wem on their address. Having shrewsbury on it will certainly add value to the house price
Report abuse
I haven’t heard of any complaints from Oswestry (SY10 and 11), Ellesmere (SY12) or Whitchurch (SY13). What is special about Wem, apart from all the boarded up shops and pubs?
Report abuse
Dont seem to happen in Market Drayton that has a Tf Postcode, maybe the people of Wem need to spell their address better
Report abuse
I imagine it has little to do with perception and everything to do with established mail routing systems. If Shrewsbury was dropped from the address then Wem would have to be added as a separate destination and recognised at all sorting and collection centres throughout the UK. A lot of costly upheaval with no technical or efficiency benefits just to please a handful of people.
Incidentally, if mail has a property name/number and the correct postcode on it then it doesn’t matter whether Shrewsbury is included in the address or not; electronic sorting means it will reach the right destination. Those who claim they are not receiving their mail ought to check and make sure they’re providing the right address information in the first place.
Report abuse
It’s not a postcode problem,it’s an address problem.People posting letters to Wem need not put Shrewsbury on the address.
I live in a particular street in Shrewsbury the name of which is duplicated in Wem,when people address letters Wem,Shrewsbury that’s where the confusion is caused.
Also if people actually put the postcode for Wem on the letter it would help enormously that’s what postcodes are for.
Report abuse
I don’t really see the issue. I’ve lived in Wem for nearly a year and get all my post! Three things though.
1) is Wem really big enough to be called a town? It’s got like ten shops and as many pubs
2) Wem is bizarrely (I shocked myself after moving here) a really nice place to live. There’s a few idiots but frankly after the last few weekends in Shreqsbury and people’s performance at Cage Control 6, I wouldn’t be as proud as previously posting people are of a place with rampant negative attitudes and hooliganism
3) if it bothers you that much just put ” Wem, Shropshire SY4…”
I think the council involved in this need to get a grip – for example 10p to park at the coop is apparently a scandal?!? Have they ever parked in Birmingham? Youll pay at least £2 for that privilege!
Report abuse
I live in Ash Vale and we used to have to put Aldershot Hants, even though we live in Surrey and had a Guildford post code. They eventually stopped this as people kept on at them to change it, so now we are able to use the name Surrey instead of Aldershot Hants. It not a snob thing at all, but you need to go on to them a lot to get what you want. Shrewsbury is a lovely town but if you live in Wem which is also a lovely place to live you should not have to put Shrewsbury.I am from Shrewsbury.
Report abuse
Not really a “battle” is it Shropshire Star, more the writing of a letter. Epic.
Report abuse
As Telford is the biggest population in Shropshire shouldnt all postal addresses for Shropshire ie Shrewsbury, Wem, Bridgnorth have
Nr Telford included after the town, would make a lot of sense.
Report abuse
Why don’t you become an independent state. That would sort it out. You can have your own stamps then too (with a sweet pea on) and, if you like, carrier pigeons.
Report abuse
The inclusion of “Shrewsbury” in Wem addresses is not entirely necessary. I note that Wem Town Council have already taken this initiative and chosen to remove Shrewsbury from their contact details on their .gov website and are listed as:
Wem Town Council
Edinburgh House
New Street
Wem
SY4 5DB
While the inclusion of “Shrewsbury” can help to get the letter to the main sorting hub, its really destination point and the postcode that are of the greatest importance. If anyone were to send a letter to “Wem Town Council, SY4 5DB”, these two simple key points in any address would suffice and the letter would arrive promptly.
I would rather my town council focused on improving education, employment, trade and tourism. Leave petty address squabbles to the gossip merchants on the corner of every street. If you dont want “Shrewsbury” on your envelopes… dont put it on there. Don’t include it in your address when people ask for it.
As we head into the Christmas period again, I, like many postmen across the country will be trawling through hundreds of badly addressed greeting cards and attempting to deliver them to the “pink house on the left hand side of minsterley road just passed the pub”… The public would be pleasantly suprised to discover how many of these items reach their destination!
I leave you with this… Use a postcode. If you don’t know it then “Google” the address, it’ll take a few seconds and it will give you peace of mind that your letter is going to the right place.
Report abuse
Part of the problem is with web sites that make use of Post Office Address information.
As examples Trip Advisor and Beer in the Evening, asking for details of banks and pubs in Wem, the responses come back with correctly identified businesses, e.g. the Castle, Barclays, Nat West, all the addresses report back as High Street Shrewsbury.
Simple explanation is that systems using the Post Office PAF use the postal town as the location.
It may have no impact on mail delivery, which only needs a post code and house namer or number, but has significant effect on systems such as the above.
Report abuse
At least they have a postal address within the same country! Here in the north-west of Shropshire, near Oswestry, we have a postal address for Wrexham. Now that does causes real problems, as things like education, health care, social care, grants and funding, travel allowances, etc etc are different on either side of the border. Increasingly organisations base things on postcode alone, and so it is very easy for local people in need to fall through the cracks and find it impossible to find out about or claim things they are entitled to. Post codes are really only about how mail is sorted and delivered from the nearest sorting office, but seem to have now taken on a life of their own. Most organisations ask for post code when registering or making enquiries and base everything on that alone. I have had someone in England refusing to allow me to have information about a (national) service because ‘I was not living in England because my postcode said so’.
Report abuse
Smaller towns and villages are assigned to a postal town in order to distinguish addresses where there is no postcode. That’s how our system works. Many thousands of smaller towns and villages up and down the country are in the same situation. How many different towns are there in the West Midlands? Imagine if all these had a completely seperate address. What is so special about Wem that it should be in a different category to everyone else?
Report abuse
I can’t believe it. If the great battle of Wem postcodes is lost, what hope is there for the breakaway Loppington splinter group fighting for a glorious independent postcode of its own? A sad day indeed.
Report abuse
Brilliant. And what about the underground Nonley Ninjas?
Report abuse
Extra Extra read all about it….”Greg Davies to be crowned King of Wem”……”Prees Parish Council to enforce Sweet pea embargo”….”UN to investigate alleged Wem centrifuge programme”……”Nonely demands investigation into Tilley suspected Weapons of Mass Destruction – Newtown threaten action”………”Wem Carnival set to be best ever!”
Report abuse