Confused? New call to axe Shrewsbury from Wem postal addresses

The inclusion of Shrewsbury in Wem's postal address is behind the problem, causing post to turn up at the wrong location.

Meanwhile, delivery drivers are having to call for directions after getting lost in Shrewsbury, which is about 10 miles away from Wem.

Now Wem Civic Society has called for pressure to be put back on Royal Mail to get Shrewsbury removed from the town's official postal address.

Shelagh Richardson, chairman of the society, said: "Wem is really reliant on business and tourism.

"But there are problems when trying to find things online in Wem because it misses out the town name entirely and just includes Shrewsbury.

"And there are a number of problems with deliveries. Some post ends up in Shrewsbury and then some Shrewsbury post ends up in Wem.

"It is because the postal address might say Chapel Street, Shrewsbury, but that street is not in Shrewsbury, it is in our town.

"A lot of delivery drivers go straight to Shrewsbury and then have to call for directions. They think we are a suburb but we are not, we are a town in our own right. We need this sorting and we will keep putting pressure on Royal Mail until something gets done."

North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson has previously called the inclusion of Shrewsbury "nonsense", but his own appeal to Royal Mail was turned down.

But in a fresh bid for change, Mrs Richardson has submitted a letter to the town council calling for help when pressuring mail officials.

She said: "I do wonder how much retail and tourism is lost because Wem is invisible on some systems. Investment in tourism initiatives will be rather wasted if people cannot find Wem.

"I am sure that Wem Town Council has tried to rectify this before, but it might be worth another attempt."

Two years ago, councillors tried to push the mail company to do something but were turned down.

Officials previously said it is only able to make changes to post towns when the area is being recoded to meet an operational need – and that this is not the case with Wem and Shrewsbury.

The issue is expected to be included on next month's town council agenda.

Royal Mail spokesman Rhys Jones said: "Shrewsbury is the correct postal town for Wem and as such it will not be removed from the postal address file. We remind all customers to use the post code when sending mail.

"Any customer with concerns about their mail should contact Royal Mail's customer service team on 03457 740740."