Part of Birmingham

I don't see how Coventry being incorporated into a 'Greater Birmingham' automatically puts the green belt between Allesley and Elmdon under threat. 'Greater Birmingham' is just another name for 'West Midlands'. Local admin will stay in Coventry just like it has always been. Coventry will still have its own identity, its own post codes, which is more than can be said for poor old Nuneaton, Bedworth, Warwick, RLS and surrounding 'Warwickshire' area that got dumped with CV codes and their main post offices relegated to kiosk status.

And what's with all of this 'they will have the GTRs reporting directly to the EU? Do you think that the French and Germans will agree to doing that? Hell no.

So the address will be Coventry, Gtr B'ham. You will still have to assure out of towners that you are not Brummies just like it is now! I fail to see how people can't tell the difference between a Vince Hill and Jasper Carrott dialect, but many things fail me these days.

So, just where is Coventry's main post office, then?

I live in Canada. Look it up yourself.

Leamington and Warwick main offices and collection points both closed and last collections were set around 6pm. If we wanted a letter to go late, we had to drive to Coventry because that is where all CV mail was accumulated (presumably Tower Street) before being shipped out. I can tell you here and now that Leamington and Warwick people were this NOT happy.

I know the answer - I was interested to know if you could tell from Canada! PS. It's inside WH Smith's! Do you think Coventry residents were happy when it moved there?

Poor ol' Coventry is certainly taking a bashing this week !

I'll wager that you were not. You are missing some of the point here. When RLS and Warwick lost their main post offices, they also lost the local accumulation and sorting points and the late posting times that went with them. Coventry became main sorting office for the whole area and the city still had late collections, but RLS and Warwick was reduced to 6pm.

PS. Our post offices are in Shoppers Drugmart stores, some of which are 24 hour. However, Canada Post only picks up at 10am but at least one can have the letter or package ready to go any time of day or night.

Dream, Coventry has taken a bashing since 1043 AD and it's still there. It is a far more resilient city than some of its residents give credit. Perth WA or wherever it is you live will be long gone and Coventry folk will still be rambling on about Green Belt and 'should we say you or yow'.

Slowly getting better after another health issue, I've thought carefully whether or not I should post on this subject. I have decided that I would, but it will be the only time that I will. The reason that I have decided to is because, purely a PERSONAL view, I feel that this discussion is developing into the WORST that I have ever seen on this forum. Common sense and reality seems to have got up and well and truly cleared off. Without doubt this is potentially an emotive subject, but can we please get back to reality and not wander off into the realms of, well, I'm not really sure. My understanding is that throughout England, a number of local authorities are INVESTIGATING the possibility of working together, essentially for two main reasons - to reduce their daily 'operating' costs and to increase the likelihood of receiving greater investment from central government. One such proposal involves Birmingham and the 'Black Country' district councils of Sandwell, Dudley, Wolverhampton and Walsall. It has been indicated that the other two metropolitan boroughs of the former West Midlands County Council - Solihull and Coventry - had also been 'approached' and asked if they wish to discuss the matter further. But that is as far as the 'Birmingham' proposal and Coventry has got. Both Solihull and Coventry have 'indicated' that they might join later, once they've seen how things have evolved. However, there is also a proposal that Solihull, Coventry and Warwickshire might work together along similar lines. These proposals are purely that - local authorities working together and nothing else. Where has the suggestion that Coventry would become a part of Birmingham come from? Where has the information that county boundaries will be redrawn come from? That post codes will/might/should change? It should be remembered that Ann Lucas is an elected member and the current Leader of Coventry City Council. Nothing more. Such a subject would be open to debate within the City Chambers with all other elected members (Councillors) and a vote would have to be taken by them all. As Leader, Ann Lucas cannot force/push (call it what you will) anything through by herself, let alone anything as important and emotive as this issue. The Press love 'always good for a quote' Ann Lucas. However, Ann Lucas is only in the position that she is for a limited time. It's such a simple matter to remove her - and all the other current city Councillors - at the next local election. And ALL of them are aware of that. The only comment that I will make about post codes is that they will never change. What is the point? There is no need for them to change. They are set in stone. The cost of doing so would be phenomenal, especially to businesses. At the time of the introduction of post codes, Coventry was in Warwickshire. It made economic sense with automation to have the maximum throughput at regional sorting centres. The green argument also kicks into play - one truck from each of Kenilworth, Leamington, Rugby etc to Coventry Bishop Street; after sorting, letters from each of those originating point are then consolidated and moved onwards along with those from Coventry and the rest of Warwickshire. Emotive arguments against such a move don't really stack up in this modern world of volume logistics etc. Things have moved on once again following the closure of the Bishop Street sorting office, with letters originating in Coventry and Warwickshire being trucked over the border into Northamptonshire for sorting and onward movement by road from there. As a matter of interest, letters sorted in Coventry used to bear the post mark 'Coventry, Warwickshire'. After the transfer of Coventry into the West Midlands, they were franked as 'Coventry and Warwickshire'. Although not an employee of the Post Office, as a contracted service provider, I spent 8 years on the project to get the Post Office super-hub to Coventry Airport, which at the time was the largest inward investment ever into the City of Coventry - some £98 million, give or take. Apologies in advance for any poor English, for any spelling mistakes, and for the personal viewpoint. Also, there is absolutely no intention of appearing to be critical of any previous poster in any way. I just felt that we had lost our way a little.

Thank you Ron. At least someone has spent time thinking rather than just wading on in.

Ron, all good words. I understood the problems with mail and the benefits of an efficient sorting office. RLS and Warwick could never have competed but you know what it's like. We get promised a better service and it goes downhill. Will the mail from the CV area get an 'Althorpe' stamp now? Kettering would be cool too.

The main issue is investment and control of that investment. Coventry currently receives government funding directly. It has its own LEP. These proposals will not see an overall increase in investment on the whole, but what it gets will be given to Greater Birmingham, NOT Coventry. And given that the major political influence will be held by Birmingham councillors, where do you think most of that money will go? Will the 1m Brummies get what they want or the 300k Coventrians? Others have said Friargate could be scaled back massively so as not to compete with the HS2 development (in the green belt no less and has been cited by the government as a potential new town of 100k people). City Centre South could get the same so as not to compete with Birminghams retail. Birmingham have tried to stop passengers planes being reintroduced at Coventry as it should all go into BHX.

According to a letter in todays` Daily Telegraph, some residents of Solihull are very upset at their town being referred to as part of Birmingham. It seems we are not alone!!

Coventry's economy is based on service and knowledge based industries these days, and there are a lot of skilled jobs including a number of major HQs for European firms - it's economy is diverse these days, you're more likely to find someone who writes software than makes cars. What Coventry needs is not the same as Birmingham, which is in a total political mess and eager to gobble up surrounding towns in order to get more cash to fix its own problems. As soon as they have control of the wider region, projects in Coventry will be canned or downsized so Birmingham can benefit, the lie being that if Birmingham benefits so does Coventry. This is not true, in fact the opposite, Birmingham is a weak city and does not benefit anywhere around it, instead it creates a 'shadow' effect which prevents cities like Coventry from growing and improving. Despite comments here from ex-pats Coventry isn't anywhere as bad as you think, and in terms of economy some aspects are are actually strong (knowledge based industries, for example). Whilst it's still saddled with the desperately bad post-war 'reconstruction' that has quite clearly failed and tinkering with it is not working, the developments of the 1990s with the out of town office developments have helped bring new jobs that you wouldn't normally get in a city that was reliant on a single industry. The city has all the same problems that any decent sized town or city has, but it's nowhere near as bad as people say and could potentially be a much more attractive prospect to set up a business in than somewhere like Birmingham. The big problem with Coventry as I see it is that the lousy city centre.

Hi all The economic drivers in the UK radiate out from London, which is why the South East, plus the area that we refer to as the "Home Counties" do so well. The crucial ingredient, I believe, is good communication, the ability to move goods & stuff around. Sorry to harp on, but it is Coventry & Birmingham's historical rail links, along with our being centred on the motorway network that had added the spice to our economic viability. Good communications on their own are limited unless there are good material handling areas for merchandise, which is what the London area has in abundance. The advent of HS2, "like it or not", opens the possibility of Midlands merchandise going direct to the continent without the London & South East area being an intermediary. Again, like it or not, it is the terminal in Birmingham which will be Coventry's access to the gravy train. We cannot rely on the conglomerate businesses to drive our economics, what will is when a man (entrepreneur) in Coventry, who wants to send a piece of kit anywhere, can do so easier than his competitor, no matter where the competitor might be located. If Coventry excludes itself from this access, we may well suffer the same economic lacking as did Leicestershire for over half a century.

Philip, I always saw Coventry and Birmingham as a pair anyway, and being two parts (along with a good few others) of a large Metropolitan council can't hurt Coventry. The concept of 'losing identity' hasn't happened with other Metropolitan councils, and there is no reason why it should happen in this case. From what I have read, residents of the 'Black Country' and Solihull feel that same way about it as Coventry residents, but the fear seems to come more from snobbishness than economic sense. Mind you, I don't envy the job of the people who have to lace it all together.

Talk of Coventry making its own Metropolitan council with its other neighbours would probably see a similar response from the others as in 'no way, Jose', but supporters of the 'NO' vote could hardly blame them, could they.