Monday March 14, 2022 | LANGFORD, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
What’s in a name? The City of Langford is encouraging businesses to promote their location as within Langford, including using Langford in their postal mailing and map locational details with customers and suppliers.
The postal code prefixes for addresses within Langford including V9B and V9C. Canada Post calls those Victoria.
But as the ambitious growth plans of the Langford municipality forge forward “it’s all about the name”, so to speak.
City label mismatch:
Langford Mayor Stew Young has been thinking about this mismatch in city address labelling for several years now.
Just a few days ago, an email from the City to the business community was issued, encouraging the shift over to using LANGFORD in their address information for marketing and mailing.
Greater Victoria includes 13 municipalities, also collectively known as the Capital Regional District (CRD). The City of Langford is one of those, and so is the City of Victoria. Two very different geographical areas, with very different lifestyle flavours and ways of operating as municipalities.
Canada Post weighs in:
Island Social Trends has inquired with Canada Post as to the reliability of mail and parcel delivery if an address with postal code prefix V9B or V9C shows LANGFORD as the city instead of VICTORIA.
“Canada Post recognizes the V9B and V9C Forward Sortation Areas (FSAs) as geographical areas belonging to Victoria,” says Canada Post media relations rep Phil Legault.
In a comment to Island Social Trends today, Legault further articulates: “We also recognize the use of Langford and Colwood for postal codes using these FSAs. This means the reliability of mail should not be affected for anyone using either Langford or Colwood on their mail in place of Victoria.”
Then getting into the nitty gritty: “However, please note that a customer ordering a parcel online may not find Langford or Colwood in the merchant’s database at this time,” says the Canada Post rep.
“We are currently in early discussions with municipal representatives regarding this issue,” says Canada Post.
Langford also contacting ICBC:
The City of Langford says they are in discussion with Canada Post, and also with ICBC.
A major shift in marketing would happen for businesses as well as the city, if the use of LANGFORD could be confirmed as reliable for use in address information. Drivers licence and other ID cards would also be impacted (as to address reference).
Address accuracy is widely important:
The address of a person or business is a key piece of identification in many verification and application processes with banks, credit institutions, online applications, passports and other documentation.
Any change driven by the City of Langford would have wide-reaching impacts on businesses and residents in a range of documentation and official records. The ripple effect could go on for a while, including costs and time to change official documentation, websites, and marketing materials.
===== ABOUT THE WRITER:
Island Social Trends Editor Mary P Brooke has been writing about the socioeconmics of the south Vancouver Island region since 2008, with a focus on the west shore since 2014.
===== RELATED:
Langford downtown density highlighted by architect at public event (March 6, 2022)
Langford steps up to support Canada Post local community mailbox cleanup (September 3, 2021)
Canada Post community mailbox management & municipal responsibilities (July 17, 2021)
Canada Post on relocating retail outlet within Westshore Town Centre (April 19, 2021)
COVID pushes Canada Post outlet to new location in Langford (April 16, 2021)
