Postal Address Removal

Beverley and Holderness MP, Graham Stuart, together with David Davis MP, Greg Knight MP, Shona McIsaac MP, Ian Cawsey MP, and the leaders of East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Hull City Council, North Lincolnshire Council and North-East Lincolnshire Council, has written to the Postal Services Commission (Postcomm) to ask it recommend to the Royal Mail that North Humberside and South Humberside be removed from all official postal databases.

Residents from across the area have long complained of receiving written correspondence marked North or South Humberside. This is despite the abolition of the county of Humberside in April 1996, when it was replaced by four individual unitary authorities.

Graham met last year with Christine Nolan, External Relations Manager at the Royal Mail and presented her with 750 petition signatures which he had collected from across the constituency. Ms Nolan informed him that Postcomm would be undertaking a public consultation into the code of practice governing changes to the Postcode Address File (PAF) – Royal Mail’s list of the postal addresses of all 27 million households in the UK.

At the moment, the PAF does not cover county information. However, during a meeting last month with Philip Groves, Policy Manager, Market Development Directorate at Postcomm, Graham was told Postcomm could recommend to the Royal Mail this be corrected. This would allow it to use up to date county information on its databases and remove North and South Humberside. Mr Groves recommended as many people as possible write to him asking for these changes to be made.

In the joint letter sent to Mr Groves, the MPs and Council Leaders said: “As you are aware, the county of Humberside was abolished in April 1996, to be replaced by four unitary authorities: Kingston-upon-Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire and North-East Lincolnshire. Despite this, the Royal Mail has continued to use North Humberside and South Humberside as postal counties.

“Following a meeting between yourself and Graham Stuart MP, we are writing to ask that county information is in future included in the Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF) and that out of date county information such as North Humberside and South Humberside is removed. We would be extremely grateful if, following your public consultation, you could recommend to the Royal Mail that these changes are made.”

Graham said, “I’m grateful for the advice that Postcomm have given me. Mr Groves told me that if we can get enough people to ask for the county information to be changed and the words North and South Humberside removed from the database, he’ll be able to recommend to the Royal Mail that these changes are made. He said that there is no specific reason why Humberside should continue to be used as a postal address nor why the Royal Mail would object to these changes taking place. Postcomm should be able to make its recommendations by the end of the summer.”