Many years back The Wirral was part of Cheshire. Then Liverpool and its environs were moved from Lancashire and became Merseyside. Much to the annoyance of many Wirral inhabitants it was put into Merseyside not Cheshire. For years many people put their address as Cheshire not Merseyside but they were more annoyed because they got Liverpool postcodes. Insurance companies use postcodes to assign risk values for home insurance/car insurance and having a Liverpool postcode put up the prices as it was considered a high crime area. Then the Post Office, fed up with poor industrial relations at the main Liverpool/Merseyside sorting office started expanding other sorting offices and reduced investment in Liverpool. The result was many Wirral postcodes moved from being Lnn nXX to CHnn nXX, i.e. the first letters said Cheshire not Liverpool/Merseyside. There was deep joy because when insurance premium renewals came up quoting CHxx nXX got lower quotes… I saw my car insurance premium drop 35% because the postcode changed, nothing else did, crime rates remained the same, risk was the same but it was perceived I was in a lower risk area: Cheshire not Liverpool/Merseyside.
This happens still. Some people have had Wirral, Merseyside addresses with Cheshire postcodes for 25 years now and they still say Cheshire not Merseyside for the perceived “snob” value. Except till the other day when they were glad they were in Merseyside not Cheshire. Merseyside and hence Wirral stayed in tier 3 whislt Cheshire moved to tier 4 lockdowns.
So people do have desire to be associated with old names / boundaries because that was what it was and it’s what they liked. Whereas, they should often welcome these changes as it can make much fiscal sense to no longer be associated with their old area.