Sir, Having read your feature on Tim Collins' Digital TV campaign (Gazette, September 10, Digital TV switch threatens closedown'), and your editorial suggesting it may all be a storm in a tea cup, I was reminded of a long-standing local issue that Mr Collins might like to use his interest in local affairs to solve, mainly by shouting very loudly at Royal Mail.

Here in Arnside, and many other Cumbrian (formerly Westmorland) towns and villages such as Kirkby Lonsdale, Holme and Burton, we have long suffered the idea of an imposed "postal" rather than a geographical address.

To say that any of these places can be found in Carnforth, Lancs, is not only inaccurate, it leads to costly mistakes being made: When I used to work over the border in Carnforth itself, I regularly had to turn away various repair engineers whose computer systems had guided them to Carnforth when they were actually looking for Kirkby Lonsdale.

We have also had to guide two furniture companies and a washing machine repair man to Arnside, after all of them spent ages driving around Carnforth looking for our house. What a waste of time and money.

Insurance companies quote premiums to us on the basis that we live in Lancashire. Every piece of junk mail assumes the same, saying "of all the people in your part of Lancashire, Mr X, you have been chosen". The Reader's Digest even told me I must be living in a special part of Carnforth, to be among the few lucky Granada viewers to be selected for the draw. You get tired of saying "well actually, no, it's Cumbria and Border..."

This situation should have been resolved years ago. All you need is a house number and postcode for a letter to be delivered. The rest of your address should be geographically correct.

How do children know what county they live in, when even Cumbrian schools are having to put the Lancashire address on their letter head?

The final straw, and this leads me back to Mr Collins' latest beef, is that because of this "postal address" ITV have decided that in Arnside we live in Lancashire, and therefore have given us Granada only on satellite.

While through a grainy and poor analogue signal we can still find out what the Sheriff of Dungannon has been up to lately, without manually tuning Border in every time we want to watch it, our crystal clear digital picture now shows us only adverts for furniture shops in Bolton, Burnley and Blackpool.

I might as well throw in the towel now and buy a flat cap (very useful) and some black pudding (very tasty)

Jonathan Snowden Arnside Digital doubts Sir, I am writing about the switch off of TV through aerials. (Gazette, September 10, Digital TV switch threatens closedown').

A lot of people would not be able to afford digital, especially pensioners and people on DHSS benefits.

I will sign the petition when it comes.

Barbara Holme Kendal