How you address your county is your choice

YOU have recently published letters criticising Royal Mail for continuing to use county names such as Cleveland and Humberside.

I am surprised that Royal Mail have not responded to this themselves as it is totally wrong.

They don’t insist in any county names being included in addresses as, for many years now, the identity of area is determined by postcode, even two places with similar names, such as Ashford, or St Ives, can be located by postcode alone. But have your writers noticed that it is in fact the police forces that still use both Cleveland and Humberside names? As far as addressing mail is concerned, it is the addressee making the personal choice to include these names. I find the accusations of Peter Hyde of Driffield to be offensive and not properly thought through. The postcode YO is not for Yorkshire, but just for the York district postal area.

In a similar situation, when critics of supermarkets claim they take trade from small shops, this again is personal choice of where to shop. Nobody forces shoppers to buy from supermarkets, and I would guess that some writers who complain, do in fact use supermarkets instead of the local shops themselves.

In the end, the customer makes that personal choice.