Pushing back is fine if you have a good reason to do so, and the proposed improvement really isn't an improvement at all. I fail to see how this is the case he

Pushing back is fine if you have a good reason to do so, and the proposed improvement really isn't an improvement at all. I fail to see how this is the case here: visitors to the town are getting lost because their address scheme makes no sense at all except to the locals. There's a good reason every other city and town in the whole country (presumably) has adopted the building-number / street-name convention (and in most other countries as well).