Merging Lakeshore mailing address will help create clarity, mayor says
If you reside within any community in Lakeshore, your mailing address is about to change. Town council has given the green light and will notify Canada Post that every community within the boundaries of Lakeshore is to now carry that name under its mailing address instead of their home communities such as Belle River, Maidstone, Comber or Puce. “This avoids a bit of confusion with mail delivery and where it’s going,” said Lakeshore Mayor Tom Bain, among those who supported the change in a 5 to 3 council vote in support.
“Right now, people in town may have 12 or 13 different (community) mailing addresses. Sometimes people in Tecumseh or Windsor get mail when it actually should be delivered in Lakeshore. “This gives clarity to avoid mail being delivered somewhere else because of a similar address. Now the mailing address will all be Lakeshore.”
Safety was another important factor in the change, the mayor said.
The change to using Lakeshore as a common address anywhere in the municipality will help eliminate confusion for emergency responders — whether that’s police, fire or ambulance, Bain said. “If the mail can get mixed up, a 911 dispatch could also go to the wrong place when there is a matching address (in different communities),” he said.
Rita Chappell, manager of communications for Lakeshore, said another key factor in the switch is being better able to promote the municipality.
“In our mailing address there was nothing that said Lakeshore,” she said. “Having Lakeshore as our mailing address helps us to better promote the municipality both internally and externally.” The change deals strictly with mailing address under Canada Post services, with no changes planned on changing or eliminating the names of individual communities, Chappell said. “The town prides itself on the strong identities of our individual communities and there are no plans to do away with signage or our community base,” she said. There may be a bit of initial inconvenience for residents to make the mailing address change, but there should not be any costs associated with the change, Chappell said. The town council motion calls on Canada Post to make the mailing address change, but the entire process may take up to two years to formally be completed, Chappell said.
“Canada Post supports this,” Chappell said.
“This is something Tecumseh has been going through and LaSalle, as well.”