York airbrushed from postal history in shake-up that leaves MP out of sorts

But postcards and letters sent from the city are going to be without York’s name after Royal Mail confirmed the famous postmark is about to be consigned to history.

The decision has come about due to a controversial overhaul imposed by the Royal Mail as part of its bid to cut costs which will see the city’s mail sorting offices move across to West Yorkshire when operations are centralised to Leeds.

The Royal Mail has confirmed that any mail posted in York will have a Leeds postmark instead – the postmark denotes where letters are sorted and not posted, according to a spokeswoman.

The decision has been condemned by the Labour MP for York Central, Hugh Bayley, who has pledged to write to Royal Mail chiefs in the hope of reaching a compromise with both Leeds and York appearing on the postmark. Mr Bayley said: “York is an internationally recognised city which is a great draw for visitors from around the world. It will be extremely odd for them to post a card or a letter in the city and for the name of Leeds to appear on the postmark.

“But it is not just about tourism, as a lot of businesses trade on the cachet of producing goods in such a great city. I really do believe that this will be harmful to their business.

“Places are rooted in their local character, and it is such a shame to think that a city which is so important to the region is about to be airbrushed from postal history.”

The Royal Mail stressed the changes are “vital” as part of a national streamlining of the organisation. The move to West Yorkshire will see 157 jobs go in York, with about 60 workers transferring to Leeds. The remainder have either opted to become postal delivery workers or are taking voluntary redundancy. The changes will begin this month and are due to be completed by the start of next year.

The spokeswoman said: “Our programme to modernise Royal Mail is one of the biggest transformations in UK industry currently taking place.

“We need to modernise in response to the decline in the volume of posted mail and to introduce the latest technology to our sorting centres.”

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