MP Attacks Post Office 'Inflexibility' Over Post Codes

2.03.43pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 2nd Sep 2003

MP Vincent Cable met Whitton Business Association earlier this week to discuss their response to the Post Offices refusal to allow a ballot of residents incorporating Whitton into the postal address.

Vincent Cable said: "the underlying problem is that the Post Office is unbelievably rigid and doctrinaire about its post codes. The Post Office divided up the country into 'post towns', with post codes that cut across local authority and other traditional boundaries."

"Much inconvenience as well as loss of local identity results and since post codes are used for direct mailing, home and car insurance and much else residents can find themselves seriously penalised. Thus parts of Whitton are allocated to Hounslow (TW4); the Hanworth end of Twickenham to Feltham (TW13); Hampton Wick to Kingston (KT1); and Hampton Court to Molesey. This is a national as well as a local problem: the Isle of Wight is treated, for example, as part of Portsmouth."

"We had a more limited objective in Whitton which was simply to

incorporate Whitton as an extra line in the postal address so as to avoid correspondence referred to "Whitton High Street, Twickenham" being misdirected and to keep Whitton's identity in the postal address system. But since Whitton covers two 'postal towns' (Twickenham and Hounslow) the Post Office is unrelenting".

"Frankly, this is bureaucratic bloody mindedness gone mad. Neither Whitton traders or residents are giving up on this one but patience with the Post Office is becoming exhausted".