FED-UP residents of Chapeltown, Edgworth and Belmont are fighting for their village identities to be recognised by post service bosses.

Campaigners say the vast majority of mail sent to village homes uses the postal address of Turton.

But North Turton Parish Council, representing the three rural villages, says the district of Turton does not exist and it wants residents' letters and parcels to reflect that fact.

Officials are submitting an application to the Royal Mail asking for their correspondence to be labelled either Chapeltown, Edgworth or Belmont.

The old Turton urban district, which had its own council, was divided in two under the reorganisation of local government in 1974.

South Turton -- Bradshaw, Bromley Cross, Harwood and Eagley -- became part of Bolton.

Edgworth, Chapeltown and Belmont are part of North Turton.

Cllr David Smith, vice-chairman of the council, said Turton did not appear on many local and national maps, although it was still recognised by the Royal Mail.

He said: "We want our addresses to reflect where we live.

"We do not live in Turton -- there is no such place anymore.

"If our mail said North Turton, it would be correct, but it does not even say that.

"Correspondence reads 'Turton' followed by the postcode so we are asking the Royal Mail for a change.

"Sometimes it can even cause the odd delay in the mail. Our bid has been backed by a lot of residents."

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "People do feel very strongly about their addresses and we do acknowledge that. However, as we deal with more than 80 million letters every day we process a lot of mail automatically.

"Our machinery is programmed to read postal addresses as they appear in the postal address file which is a Royal Mail address database.

"It is therefore important that people include in their addresses the correct post town and post code as the last two lines of their address to ensure mail is dealt with as quickly as possible.

"We have no objection, however, to people including other address information such as counties for example."