Emergency call outs for Bedfordshire’s border towns and villages is a ‘postcode lottery’

PEOPLE living in towns and villages on the edges of the county have a greater chance of having their emergency calls misdirected due to confusion over who has responsibility for cross-border postcodes.

In several spots residents have postcodes related to sorting offices in neighbouring counties. For example the SG5 code covers Astwick and Stotfold, but also covers Hitchin. Similarly NN29 covers Podington but also Bozeat in Northamptonshire.

Bedfordshire Police says it does not solely rely on postcode systems, instead using ‘sophisticated computer-based ordinance survey mapping systems’.

The East of England Ambulance Service (EEAST) has said all of its calls are managed by BT and it decides where to divert the call to but there are occasions when a person who is on the border of two counties may be put through to the wrong control room.

Following an incident last week in which a man from Sandy was left at the roadside for almost two hours due to confusion over which police force should attend, a local MP and health minister has said enough is enough.

Alistair Burt, MP for North East Bedfordshire and minister for community and social care (pictured), said: “I think it’s unacceptable for the public to be told by any emergency service that an incident is ‘not on our patch’ – I think we are tired of hearing that phrase and we ought to be able to devise a better way to deal with this recurrent issue.

“I will be raising it with the appropriate forces.”

A spokesman for EEAST said: “We do operate on the postcode location system for an agreed boundary between services, but the service receiving the call would hold the responsibility of pinpointing the location in the first instance.”

A spokesman for Beds Police added: “If a call arrives in the force control room but relates to another county it will be immediately passed to the appropriate force. If we have free resources nearby we will offer to assist.”

Bedford Borough councillor for places like Podington and Farndish, Alison Field Foster, said: “This just goes to show how difficult it can be to live in the villages, it’s a postcode lottery. I have had many complaints over the years about the emergency services going to the wrong postcodes.”

A spokesman for Royal Mail said postcodes would not normally be changed unless there is ‘a pressing operational reason to do so’ and added that other organisations should not rely on them as it is ‘not appropriate in all circumstances’.

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