Coate residents put up a fight against Badbury Park address change

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A PROPOSAL to change the locality of people’s addresses from Coate to Badbury Park has sparked outrage among the local community.

Over 500 homes received a letter from Royal Mail this week to inform them that a resident had put forward the suggestion to change the name in their addresses – much to the dismay of others.

Royal Mail say they sent out the consultation cards as part of their Code of Practice to give locals the chance to have their say.

But one resident has argued that the blank envelope could have led many others to believe it was junk and potentially throwing it out, not being able to have their say.

Badbury Park Residents Group Coordinator, Peter Eves has this week been encouraging residents to respond to the letter as less than 20 per cent could see the proposal approved.

“Not every house has got a letter yet and I’ve been getting emails from a lot of people to ask where this has all come from,” the 68-year-old said.

“The envelope was just blank and we receive a lot of like that all the time which is junk. A lot of people would just take one look of it and bin it. Everyone would have to change their personal details on all their documents and I know some insurance companies charge to do that.

“I’ve had emails from other people as well asking how one person can suggest it to Royal Mail and then see the locality of their address changed when it is not what they want.

“Badbury Park is just the name the developers picked early on but it has since stuck. I don’t have a problem with Badbury Park but Coate is the locality of where we live and I think a lot of people were surprised to hear that it could be changed so easy.”

Peter also argues that while Badbury Park is technically the new title of the estate, it does not have the historical attachment which Coate has and residents would like to see a postbox installed in the area before any other changes are even considered.

Since a number of residents made their opinions vocal, Royal Mail spokesperson Sally Hopkins said: “Following a request to add ‘Badbury Park’ as a locality to addresses in this area, we wrote to residents to seek their views on this proposal as per our Code of Practice for making such changes.

“We’re now putting this consultation on hold to allow further time to look into this and we will be writing to residents shortly to update them.”

Robert Buckland, MP for South Swindon said he was first alerted to the proposal in November last year and it was after a group of residents raised serious concerns recently that he decided to conduct a survey with locals about their locality preference.

He said he hopes to collate the information to share with residents and Royal Mail in the coming weeks in order to shed some clarity on the situation.