Disintegration of full address robs us of county

TWO letters (Yorkshire Post, March 18) criticised “redundant” county names. David Bate wanted “Cleveland” ditching and Canon Michael Storey questioned the use of “Humber”. I do agree with both views but I find that the opposite is also true.

In addresses we have already lost our country (England) and are gradually losing our county (West or East Yorkshire) and now, even our city and town names are at risk.

Here is the proof. David Bate referred to auto-address databases. I post small parcels regularly for a friend and counties are not there any more, which leaves me to ask, out of curiosity, “where are all these places?”

This week I saw Sturminster Newton, St Blazey, West Cliffe (not Westcliff-on-sea), Beccles and Portavogie. All these were followed by just a postcode – what a puzzling and stupid system, requiring a road atlas or an inquiry into the computer to find the county. In fact, last week I posted a small parcel that was addressed to “Headingley” followed by just an LS6 postcode - no mention of Leeds at all.

A few years ago, a friend of mine experienced a problem with an immigration official when arriving in the US for holiday. The friend had written “England” in his address and the official took exception to this, saying “You mean UK” to which my friend said that England was part of the UK, just like Scotland is. The official became quite shirty and my friend had to change it to “UK”; then he calmly reminded the official that Americans always refer to “London, England”.

So there we have it – I have lost my country, my county and our cities and towns could be soon submitting to the disintegration of the full address. How soon before it will just be your name, house number and street/road, postcode?