A SKIRMISH over a new development’s postal district has been resolved.

Many residents were left fuming after Royal Mail consulted on whether to change the name of the “Coate” postal district to “Badbury Park”.

It came after someone put forward a suggestion to change the name in their addresses.

Peter Eves, Badbury Park Residents Group coordinator, told the Adver in August: “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.”

Royal Mail, who sent out 500 letters with consultation cards, said that they had made the move to give residents a say - in line with their Code of Practice.

South Swindon MP Robert Buckland ran his own consultation, dropping around 450 consultation letters through doors in the area. Around a fifth of households responded – with 92 per cent saying they wanted to stay as Coate.

Royal Mail today confirmed that they had written to residents saying that their addresses would “remain unchanged”.

Sally Hopkins, a spokeswoman for Royal Mail, said: “According to our Code of Practice, any change to the name of a locality included in a postal address requires support from customer representatives before we can consult with residents. The MP for the area carried out his own survey amongst Coate residents and, based on the findings, requested that no changes were made to their addresses.”

Robert Buckland MP thanked residents for taking part in the surveys. “I know there have been conflicting views,” he said. “But I do think it’s important that we made sure residents had a chance to be heard. I’m grateful to residents for raising their concerns with me.”