Martin Coffee wrote:
My address is also not in the post code data base which can cause
problems. In my case my land line had to be installed in an
"outbuilding" at my postcode!

When I've found addresses missing from the PAF, Royal Mail have
generally fixed it pretty quickly. Though in one case I had to go to the
council as the building really didn't have an address (despite existing,
and receiving post, for over 20 years). It still got sorted in a couple
of weeks, and we got an official letter telling us our "new" address. Of
course it then takes months or years for everyone else to update their
copies of that database!

Mike

On 22/01/2016 10:20, Roland Perry wrote:
ps We do still have some counties in our addresses; places in
Peterborough for example, which is a County. Although in any event
Peterborough is a "Post Town".

Ooh, it's been a while since we last had a good old uk.railway
"geopolitics of Peterborough" thread.
--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

wrote:

Havering etc are from Essex
Hendon etc are from Middlesex
Barnet (the town, not the borough) is from Herts
Greenwich etc are from the County Of London
Bromley etc are from Kent
Sutton etc are from Surrey
Ely Place in Holborn was an exclave of Cambridgeshire until 1965.

I'm not sure if any of Bucks or Berks made it in.. certainly not
much.

None at all.

Not initially, although a very small part of Buckinghamshire in the
Heathrow area got annexed in 1994, to align the boundary with the M25.

At the time Greater London was created, it didn't even have a border
with Berkshire. That border was only created when Colnbrook was
transferred to Slough in 1995.

Peter Smyth

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 13:26:59 +0000, Basil Jet
wrote:

On 2016\01\22 12:30, aurora wrote:

Then in 1965 came the ultimate land grab. Newly created Greater
London stretched from Chessington to Enfield. Middlesex ceased to
exist as a county authority. Most of remaining Middlesex became
Greater London, with small enclaves transferring to Surrey.

Or Herts.

Incidentally, the county boundary between Potters Bar and Barnet used to
have Hertfordshire on the south side and now the same county boundary
has Hertfordshire on the north side. Could this be a unique occurrence
in the world? I wonder if the "Welcome to Hertfordshire" signs were just
turned around on the same pole.

"Informative" signs on highways are not always precisely located
unlike older official boundary markers. Many of the former are
positioned in a manner that implies some kind of no-mans-land in
between while a few others can overlap.

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 14:02:31 +0000, Martin Coffee
wrote:

On 22/01/16 10:57, Optimist wrote:
On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 10:20:07 +0000, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
-sept

I wonder if we could thwart them by typing "England" as the county and
"European Union" as the country?

ps We do still have some counties in our addresses; places in
Peterborough for example, which is a County. Although in any event
Peterborough is a "Post Town".

The post town should be abolished, as we have the post code. It often misleads strangers who not
unreasonably follow signposts to it but can find themselves miles away from their intended
destination.


The post town is useful for the Postie if the post code is incorrect.

As is the county when dealing with a placename which is not unique.

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 03:30:05 -0800, aurora wrote:

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 09:14:43 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message
-sept
ember.org, at 08:42:10 on Fri, 22 Jan 2016, Recliner
remarked:
The Royal Mail dropped county names from addresses years ago.

Yes, but too many web forms still make it a mandatory field, probably
because they were originally designed to collect US addresses.

Not literally so, because US addresses don't include the county. In
general they are shorter than UK addresses, only having Street, Town,
State (universally abbreviated) and Zipcode.

For example, Microsoft is: One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA, 98052-7329.
No mention at all of King County.

One would have expected Nigel to have known that.

Is there any postal authority that still uses counties, or their
functional equivalent?

An Post; Japan Post if you count prefectures as equivalent to
counties.
As a consequence of ignoring counties it seems if you want to find the
postcode to 1 High Street, Sutton in RM's address/postcode finder then
you're buggered if you don't have native knowledge of UK geography.

In article
,
(Jeremy Double) wrote:

aurora wrote:
[re local government arrangements in the London area]
So, England's historic core was being changed.

Arguably, England's historic core was Wessex and Mercia, not London.
England (as a single kingdom) was formed by the unification of the crowns
of Mercia and Wessex under Æthelstan and subsequent absorption of other
Anglo-Saxon territories...

You seem to be forgetting that England was pretty much united under Roman
occupation with London as a major city. The Anglo-Saxons were a bunch of
johnny-come-latelys.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Charles Ellson) wrote:

As a consequence of ignoring counties it seems if you want to find the
postcode to 1 High Street, Sutton in RM's address/postcode finder then
you're buggered if you don't have native knowledge of UK geography.

That still doesn't help with mail to 1 High Street, Cambridge. There are
many such, distinguished by postcodes but all in the same county.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 08:52:47 -0800 (PST), "R. Mark Clayton"
wrote:

On Friday, 22 January 2016 13:49:39 UTC, e27002 wrote:
On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 05:26:11 -0800 (PST), "R. Mark Clayton"
wrote:

On Friday, 22 January 2016 12:51:22 UTC, e27002 wrote:
On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 02:09:50 +0000, Basil Jet
wrote:

SNIP

In 1855 the Metropolitan Board of Works was imposed on the urbanized
parts of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent adjacent to the City. This was
an unelected, unpopular body that descended into corruption.

So, in 1889, without the consent of the governed, half of Middlese,x
and parts of neighboring Surrey, and Kent were annexed into the London
County Council Area.

Really - no members of parliament then - I thought the reform act was in 1832.

Do remind me of when the residents of Middlesex were polled in a
referendum regarding their future.

General elections were held in 1885 and 1886 on a reformed franchise (nor universal, but most adult males).

A referendum is only really appropriate for something one cannot practically reverse e.g. Independence of Scotland or joining the EU.

If the boundaries do not work then parliament can just as easily revise them as it did with the counties of Avon, Humberside and Cleveland.


The London County Council was unique in being
granted powers not given to other counties. Why these powers could
not have been granted the Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent is a mystery.

Because they related to a capital city (and the largest urban centre by a large margin)?

IIRC the extra powers related to education and orphanages. These are
hardly matters that could not be handled by the existing boroughs, or
counties.

Really, so why was ILEA set up then?

ILEA was incorporated in 1965 at the same time as the GLC. Prior to
that the LCC handled education,

My post was in chronological order. So, yes, REALLY.

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 10:49:52 -0600,
wrote:

In article ,
(aurora) wrote:

On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 05:26:11 -0800 (PST), "R. Mark Clayton"
wrote:

Do remind me of when the residents of Middlesex were polled in a
referendum regarding their future.

It was abolished in the days when the consensus was that referendums were
the tools of dictators and our system of representative government was
wholly accepted (except for Sunday pub opening in Wales).

The London County Council was unique in being
granted powers not given to other counties. Why these powers could
not have been granted the Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent is a mystery.

Because they related to a capital city (and the largest urban centre
by a large margin)?

IIRC the extra powers related to education and orphanages. These are
hardly matters that could not be handled by the existing boroughs, or
counties.

Much the greatest extra power was to build and manage council housing. No
other county had that. All counties had education powers.


IIRC the establishment of the LCC (1889) predates the Education Act
(1902).

You clearly believe government should be in the housing for rent
market. I believe government should regulate it. Of, it is better to
have a property OWNING electorate.