A condescending communication from SBC
I arrived home today to be greeted by a letter from Scottish Borders Council. The letter is addressed to all residents of my and the next street.
In it an officer of SBC writes (in the style of a teacher admonishing an errant child) that we are all upsetting some residents of another nearby street with a similar name by not giving our addresses correctly. His implied conjecture is that we are doing this on purpose by wilfully giving our addresses in an ambiguous format.
Several things about this letter have annoyed me.... The content implies that only the residents of the nearby street are affected. This is far from the truth. The fact that we as residents are responsible for the situation and we are required to make changes. There is no similar call for those in the nearby street to show some understanding and community spirit in directing the misguided drivers etc to the right destinations.
The tone of this letter from SBC has prompted me to write a substantial letter in reply pointing out that not one of these problems actually has a root cause with the residents that are now being vilified by the council and suggesting some ways forward to improve the situation.
The highlights of my response are these:
Our street is currently called "East Mews Acacia Avenue" (not really - names changed to protect the innocent) the next one is called "West Mews Acacia Avenue", although it was "Acacia Avenue East Mews" when we moved in and SBC changed it without telling us about 3 months later. Cue another round of address changing shenanigans. The other affected street being "Acacia Avenue".
Some buffoon somewhere decided that it was a super idea to incorporate an existing street name into two new streets - it should be noted that the streets were not named by their residents, but by an element of SBC apparently acting on the suggestion of the community council. I seek clarification of who took the decision, who was present and what part they all played in the process. Of course this makes every wrong address the fault of the residents of East & West Mews.
Address format - Most companies will now ask for a postcode and a house number. They will then automatically fill the address information from the Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF). They then do not allow editing of that pre-filled address – it comes from the PAF, therefore as far as the company is concerned it is correct. Depending on the version of the PAF in use in our case it's either "East Mews Acacia Avenue" or "Acacia Avenue East Mews" - even so when it's correct it runs to 27 characters without the house number - Royal Mail's maximum in the defined format for the PAF is 30, other systems in use that I know of are as low as 23. So any misguided deliveries are naturally entirely the fault of the residents of East & West Mews!
Utility companies – Without exception I provided both gas and electricity companies with the supply point identification number, which according to OFGEM pinpoints a supply regardless of any address on record. Despite this both Scottish Power and Scottish Gas managed to change the account for the corresponding house in Acacia Avenue. My fault of course!
Deliveries - Since the first day I took possession of the property, Royal Mail’s delivery staff have, with one exception, found the right letterbox into which to deliver mail. The error in that case was confusion between East & West Mews whilst 1 West Mews was still under construction. Courier Companies are much more problematic, they continue to attempt to deliver packages to “Acacia Avenue” even when the address on the package contains terms like “next door to 39 Acacia Avenue” in addition to the correct address. As a resident, I have little control over the apparent inability of the delivery driver to read the address. On one occasion I’ve been forced to drive halfway across the country to retrieve a package because it’s been refused by the resident of Acacia Avenue, with no good grace to point the driver 500 yards down the road. When I get an occasional enquiry from a courier seeking an address I do my best to help because I know what a pain it is to have to drive 60+ miles round trip to pick up from the "local" depot (at least one of courier's depots is 164 miles round trip along winding country roads - allow 2h each way if traffic is light, add 20 litres of fuel at 98.9p/litre locally). Not to worry - it's all my fault, nothing to do with the resident of Acacia Avenue getting an occasional knock on the door because the delivery driver can't or won't read the address on the package, and I'm not inconvenienced at all by a 4h round trip costing me £20 to pick up a package that she refused to direct 500 yards. She's upset, I'm fuming having wasted four hours and spent £20 unnecessarily.
Tradespeople – I noted with some amusement at the time my stair carpet was delivered that the fitter had been to the right house number in “Acacia Avenue” which is a bungalow, and one would naturally assume not usually equipped with a staircase requiring carpeting. Again he had the full correct address and his additional notes said “next door to 39 Acacia Avenue”. That's right - my fault - my omniscience didn't run to knowing that a carpet fitter wouldn't try to fit a stair carpet to a bungalow!
The letter that has provoked me runs to 4 paragraphs - my response is 6 pages. It appears that this officer of the SBC is in for some unexpected 'light reading' on Friday morning when the letter arrives at Council HQ.
What chance of any success in getting a response? Personally I think the chance of a satisfactory response is almost nil, although I shall persist in writing until such time as I get a satisfactory response, assuming SBC don't change the name of the street again of course!
In it an officer of SBC writes (in the style of a teacher admonishing an errant child) that we are all upsetting some residents of another nearby street with a similar name by not giving our addresses correctly. His implied conjecture is that we are doing this on purpose by wilfully giving our addresses in an ambiguous format.
Several things about this letter have annoyed me.... The content implies that only the residents of the nearby street are affected. This is far from the truth. The fact that we as residents are responsible for the situation and we are required to make changes. There is no similar call for those in the nearby street to show some understanding and community spirit in directing the misguided drivers etc to the right destinations.
The tone of this letter from SBC has prompted me to write a substantial letter in reply pointing out that not one of these problems actually has a root cause with the residents that are now being vilified by the council and suggesting some ways forward to improve the situation.
The highlights of my response are these:
Our street is currently called "East Mews Acacia Avenue" (not really - names changed to protect the innocent) the next one is called "West Mews Acacia Avenue", although it was "Acacia Avenue East Mews" when we moved in and SBC changed it without telling us about 3 months later. Cue another round of address changing shenanigans. The other affected street being "Acacia Avenue".
Some buffoon somewhere decided that it was a super idea to incorporate an existing street name into two new streets - it should be noted that the streets were not named by their residents, but by an element of SBC apparently acting on the suggestion of the community council. I seek clarification of who took the decision, who was present and what part they all played in the process. Of course this makes every wrong address the fault of the residents of East & West Mews.
Address format - Most companies will now ask for a postcode and a house number. They will then automatically fill the address information from the Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF). They then do not allow editing of that pre-filled address – it comes from the PAF, therefore as far as the company is concerned it is correct. Depending on the version of the PAF in use in our case it's either "East Mews Acacia Avenue" or "Acacia Avenue East Mews" - even so when it's correct it runs to 27 characters without the house number - Royal Mail's maximum in the defined format for the PAF is 30, other systems in use that I know of are as low as 23. So any misguided deliveries are naturally entirely the fault of the residents of East & West Mews!
Utility companies – Without exception I provided both gas and electricity companies with the supply point identification number, which according to OFGEM pinpoints a supply regardless of any address on record. Despite this both Scottish Power and Scottish Gas managed to change the account for the corresponding house in Acacia Avenue. My fault of course!
Deliveries - Since the first day I took possession of the property, Royal Mail’s delivery staff have, with one exception, found the right letterbox into which to deliver mail. The error in that case was confusion between East & West Mews whilst 1 West Mews was still under construction. Courier Companies are much more problematic, they continue to attempt to deliver packages to “Acacia Avenue” even when the address on the package contains terms like “next door to 39 Acacia Avenue” in addition to the correct address. As a resident, I have little control over the apparent inability of the delivery driver to read the address. On one occasion I’ve been forced to drive halfway across the country to retrieve a package because it’s been refused by the resident of Acacia Avenue, with no good grace to point the driver 500 yards down the road. When I get an occasional enquiry from a courier seeking an address I do my best to help because I know what a pain it is to have to drive 60+ miles round trip to pick up from the "local" depot (at least one of courier's depots is 164 miles round trip along winding country roads - allow 2h each way if traffic is light, add 20 litres of fuel at 98.9p/litre locally). Not to worry - it's all my fault, nothing to do with the resident of Acacia Avenue getting an occasional knock on the door because the delivery driver can't or won't read the address on the package, and I'm not inconvenienced at all by a 4h round trip costing me £20 to pick up a package that she refused to direct 500 yards. She's upset, I'm fuming having wasted four hours and spent £20 unnecessarily.
Tradespeople – I noted with some amusement at the time my stair carpet was delivered that the fitter had been to the right house number in “Acacia Avenue” which is a bungalow, and one would naturally assume not usually equipped with a staircase requiring carpeting. Again he had the full correct address and his additional notes said “next door to 39 Acacia Avenue”. That's right - my fault - my omniscience didn't run to knowing that a carpet fitter wouldn't try to fit a stair carpet to a bungalow!
The letter that has provoked me runs to 4 paragraphs - my response is 6 pages. It appears that this officer of the SBC is in for some unexpected 'light reading' on Friday morning when the letter arrives at Council HQ.
What chance of any success in getting a response? Personally I think the chance of a satisfactory response is almost nil, although I shall persist in writing until such time as I get a satisfactory response, assuming SBC don't change the name of the street again of course!
Labels: SBC
posted by The Paper Boy at
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