It’s come under Leeds City Council’s wing for years (and is part of Pudsey electoral ward) but has never had a Leeds postcode.
Now, residents in the Tyersal estate are looking to lose their BD4 postcode and share the LS28 postcode with neighbours Pudsey, Farsley and Calverley.
They claim they’re missing out on essential services in Leeds because of their postcode and have launched an online petition with almost 500 signatures to tackle problems including residents being refused basic health care.
A campaign spokesperson said Tyersal has come under Leeds City Council since 1974:
“Tyersal, as the sign states, is in Leeds and we all pay our council tax to Leeds – which is in fact higher than Bradford – but we lose out in other ways by having a BD4 postcode.
“All our services – including police and fire – are provided by Leeds and if we want to use the council tip we have to travel to Pudsey.”
Residents claim they have found accessing Leeds services difficult because they’re perceived to be in Bradford.
They’re also got the support of Pudsey MP Stuart Andrew, who met Post Office chiefs in London to detail some of the issues Tyersal residents face. In a follow-up letter, Mr Andrew said:
“My constituents have had significant issues accessing basic public services, including health care, with Leeds-based NHS services refusing to see Tyersal residents because of their Bradford postcode, but Bradford-based NHS services believing that Leeds should provide health care as Tyersal is within the city’s boundaries.
“This has led to basic eye checks being denied to Tyersal residents by Leeds opticians, new-born babies not being seen by a midwife for up to six days, and elderly and sick residents being denied at home care.”
Other issues include:
- Difficulty reporting crimes to West Yorkshire Police stationed in Pudsey
- Impact of credit score, mortgage rates, and insurance and loan applications due to higher Bradford crime rates
Royal Mail are looking into the claims and have promised to respond to Mr Andrew.
An alternative Facebook group – called LS28 Says No to Tyersal – has over 30 members and is campaigning against Tyersal’s move, claiming higher crime rates will affect people’s insurance in existing LS28 areas.
What do you think? Have your say in our poll and comments below:
Waste of time – the Post Office will trot out their stock response of ‘we use postcodes to enable us to sort mail efficiently – it is beyond our control to what use commercial and other organisations put our postcodes’! Read that in the old Pudsey Times circa the 1980s and beyond whenever this same issue of ‘we don’t live in Bradford’ has been raised!