Wem Town Council takes delivery of bad news from Royal Mail

Royal Mail has written to Wem Town Council saying it will not consider a request to change or remove a post town.

It appears to bring to an end a long-running saga which has led to complaints from residents in the town for several years.

People have claimed post has not arrived because of confusion caused by Shrewsbury being in addresses for the town – despite it being 10 miles away.

Councillor John Murray, speaking at a meeting of Wem Town Council last night, said the council received a letter from the Royal Mail's address management team confirming its stance.

He said: "I don't think we're going to get anywhere with this, unfortunately."

In the letter, the town council was told that "a postal address is not intended to describe a precise geographical or administrative area.

"It is a sorting and routing instruction to postal staff which enables mail to reach its destination from any part of the country".

It added that changes could not be made unless an area is being re-coded for operational reasons. Councillor Pauline Dee described the news as "very sad."

Deputy mayor Councillor Rosemary Dodd said she couldn't understand why addresses needed to have Shrewsbury included when they had a postcode.

"I had a letter with just the first line of my address and my postcode the other day," she said. "It's the postcode that's the important thing for Royal Mail, not the town."

Councillor Mandy Meakin said including Shrewsbury was leading to confusion in some cases.

She said she had been speaking to a resident recently who had arrived home to find a large double wardrobe outside their house. Because their address had "Shrewsbury" in it the wardrobe had been delivered to the wrong location.

Councillors had earlier this month vowed to continue their fight to have Shrewsbury removed from postal addresses, despite receiving a "disappointing" response from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Wem Civic Society had reignited the campaign earlier this year.

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