Talk:Postcodes in the United Kingdom

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Older posts

I've put London stuff here, because I don't think either article will be very long: best to avoid stubs. We can always split later if needed.

I read once that the NW & other london numbering is alphabetical by name of sorting centre. (or old name of sorting centre). can someone confirm? -- Tarquin

Name of the sub-district, according to http://www.sigtel.com/tel_info_postcodes.html - Khendon 09:47 Oct 10, 2002 (UTC)

And here is my list of London Postal Districts (which people erroneously call postcodes in all their alphabetical glory: http://www.rhaworth.myby.co.uk/phreak/londonpd.htm. Note E98 used for The Times - slightly contradicts my note about CR9 in the main article. -- RHaworth 09:02, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

Non-geographic postcodes

I've added a section about these to the main article. The only ones I know of are the 3 I've listed: BS98, BS99 and WC99. I'm sure there are many others. Does anyone have a list? RenesisX 11:39, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's SA99 for a start, which is used solely by the DVLA. You don't have to put a street address for the DVLA, you just write "DVLA, Swansea, SA99 1XX" where 1XX changes according to the section you are writing to. Dmccormac 12:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can add BX* to that list

BN99 is non-geographic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.33.230 (talk) 15:00, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Temporary postcodes

- are asigned to, for example, building site offices (road construction) does anyone know how this is done? What about BFPO and ships in harbour? Rich Farmbrough 11:42, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Australian Postcodes

We need some information on Australian postcodes. — Yama 8 July 2005 11:28 (UTC)

There already is information on these on List of postal codes in Australia, and it would be a help if you could put info on that page, like what year they were introduced (1972?) I admit, though, that it would be a good idea to move this article to something like UK postcode system, and redirect post code to postal code. Quiensabe 13 Jul 2005 20:55 (UTC)

If you've got changes to make, do them all. Don't delete other people's hard work and leave the rest in the hope that someone will clean up. 59.167.6.237 13:14, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And what contribution have you made to this page? Why is pointing out that neither the UK or Australia have a monopoly on the term post code 'vandalism'?

Quiensabe 8 Aug 2005 20:55 (UTC)

A negative contribution is worse than no contribution at all.--59.167.6.237 10:18, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

'Postcode', 'Post code' and 'Postal Code'

The article title 'Postcode' notes the alternate spacing 'Post code' used in some countries (implying they're basically the same thing). By this logic 'Post Code' should redirect to 'postcode'; however, 'Post Code' *actually* redirects to 'Postal Code'....

Although I'd ask if this should be fixed, it presents a more general question about the organisation of content between the two articles. The 'Postcode' article aims to be generic (references to postcodes in countries outside the UK), yet concentrates on the UK system too much for this. And as mentioned, there's already a generic article about it ('Postal code')

My proposal is to move non-UK content in the 'postcode' article to the generic 'Postal code' article. This still leaves the UK-specific content remaining; and the article could then be titled more appropriately ('Postcodes in the UK', or something along those lines).

Finally, 'Post code' and 'Postcode' would both redirect to 'Postal code'.

(Apologies for the lack of account, which will be sorted. Please reply here, not to my anonymous 'user'. I'm on dial-up; plus, the address given is apparently the ISP's transparent web-cache address, not mine).

I completely agree with this suggestion - or alternatively that the content be merged into the article Postal Code, and a new article be established for UK postcode (this I think would amount to the same thing but it might be clearer for people to understand the intent of the change as it happens). The existence of this page (except as a seperate UK postcode article) makes no sense as there is already the above-mentioned generic article. Since the term "postal code" better embraces the various systems that other states have (ie ZIP, etc) than the UK-specific "postcode", clearly this page should give way to the Postal Code page, or otherwise be converted into a UK-specific page. --Danward 22:54, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for being slow - there *is* by now a seperate UK article. In which case what on earth is the postcode page for??? --Danward 22:57, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

resemble

"The letters in the inward code, however, are restricted to the set ABDEFGHJLNPQRSTUWXYZ (so cannot be one of CIKMOV), which generally do not resemble digits or each other when hand-written"... I would park the (...) bit at the end or something, else if you read this sentence on the radio, it sound like the "not" is referring to the CIKMOV...

"Mail from the UK continues to be treated as international, not inland, and sufficient postage must be used.": reword or something. Lost me here.

In Taiwan one can use the 3 or 5 digit versions.

Same details on another website

I have just found this online.

www.absoluteastronomy.com/reference/postcode

Parts of it are word for word the same.

The same for this site as well

http://postcode.brainsip.com/

pjb007 17:11, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regular Expressions

The "definitive" regular expression does not appear to recognize "WC1N2PL", which is a valid UK post code. — 86.136.86.62 (user, talk), 16:42, April 6, 2006

You're right, though the article does disclaim: "The above regular expression does not validate some London postcodes." I still prefer my regex (the first one ;o) — OwenBlacker 12:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the forward slashes and case-insensitivity marks from the following as they relate to JavaScript and not the regular expression itself:

/^[A-Z][A-Z]?[0-9][A-Z0-9]? ?[0-9][ABDEFGHJLNPQRSTUWXYZ]{2}$/i

and have also replaced:

However, this too is not completely accurate and will match many invalid postcodes. A more complete regular expressions is:

^([A-PR-UWYZ]\d\d?\d[ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2}|[A-PR-UWYZ][A-HK-Y]\d\d?\d[ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2}|[A-PR-UWYZ]\d[A-HJKSTUW]\d[ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2}|[A-PR-UWYZ][A-HK-Y]\d[A-HJKRSTUW]\d[ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2}|GIR0AA)$

(this assumes that the space between the outward code and inward code is removed, e.g. SW50QF)

The above regular expression does not validate some London postcodes. Examples include EC1V 1AA and EC1Y 1AA. None of these expressions come close to validating whether a postcode exists, as there are many otherwise valid "holes" that have not been assigned. Such a regular expression would be almost as long as the full list of postcodes. A regular expression matching just the existing outcodes is over a thousand characters long.

with the following:

However, this too is not completely accurate and will match many invalid postcodes. Yet more complete regular expressions are:

^(GIR 0AA)|([A-PR-UWYZ]\d|[A-HK-Y](?! )(\d|(?<=\d)[A-HJKSTUW])?((?<=[A-Z]{2}\d)[\dABEHMNPRV-Y])? \d[ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2})$

(which will only work if lookarounds are supported by the regular expression engine being used)

^(GIR 0AA)|([A-PR-UWYZ]((\d(\d|[A-HJKSTUW])?)|([A-HK-Y]\d(\d|[ABEHMNPRV-Y])?)) \d[ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2})$

(which does not use lookarounds but as a result has to be written in a non-linear fashion to keep track of the character position being tested)

which account for character position by not using optional characters in mid-stream and therefore should support the previously unsupported postcodes. — 217.46.150.171 17:58, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Who wrote this:

A more complex regular expression is also given in the comments of the schema, which implements full checking of all the stated BS 7666 postcode format rules. That regular expression can be restated as a "traditional" regular expression:

(GIR 0AA|[A-PR-UWYZ]([0-9]{1,2}|([A-HK-Y][0-9]|[A-HK-Y][0-9]([0-9]|[ABEHMNPRV-Y]))|[0-9][A-HJKS-UW]) [0-9][ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2})

Not only do they not explain why they refer to this as a "traditional" regular expression but successive alternations of the majority of the outward pattern are far from efficient as they will result in excessive backtracking and therefore repeated testing of already known positions—and why [0-9] rather than \d in this instance? — 217.46.150.171 16:42, 27 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Exceptions

I've added the postcode for Santa (SAN TA1), and there's and interesting website here: [1] that lists similar valid addresses for other countries.

Apart from Santa, can anyone say definitively if GIR 0AB is also an allowable exception in addition to GIR 0AA?

I believe there is also a 'test' postcode that is valid in the PAF, but does not correspond to anywhere real - anyone know what it is - it might possibly be the FX postcode apparently used in training. I have no idea if the AM code for Ambridge validates properly in the PAF either.

WLD 14:31, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Royal Mail's address finder says both GIR 0AA and SAN TA1 are not in the correct format (or "You have entered the Postcode incorrectly.", as opposed to "The address or postcode you have entered is not listed in our database."). I'm not sure what the most authorative source for postcodes is though. Elektron 14:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Left hand, meet right hand. As you've discovered, determining whether a particular postcode is valid or not is tricky, and the on-line address finder is not authoritative, and neither is the PAF. There probably isn't a single authoritative source, unfortunately. GIR 0AA is definitely valid, as it is still in use by Alliance & Leicester, who took over GIRObank in the UK. WLD 20:28, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The postcode element of the addresses side of British Standard BS7666 (Spatial datasets for geographical referencing) is covered in the appropriate page of the UK Government Data Standards Catalogue - 217.46.150.171 08:26, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That standard validates the format, not the content. And, it also explicitly lists GIR 0AA as an exception still used. Furthermore, I don't think it claims to be definitive - that is, I think it is a descriptive standard, not a prescriptive one. I would expect the Royal Mail to have a source document describing both the format and valid contents of their implementation of a postal code - not least as a specification for the automated sorting machines - but whatever they have does not seem to be available to the general public. The PAF is not definitive, even though many organisations erroneously treat it as such. WLD 10:02, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The standard is just that a British Standard and the postcode section is only part but does prescribe - for the time being at least - the structure of UK postcodes that are or could be assigned. It is however acknowledged that these conventions may change in the future if operationally required. - 217.46.150.171 10:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it has been updated - see here, and I don't have access to the 2006 revised edition. The link you give says "The code allocated by the Post Office to identify a group of postal delivery points.", so the document you link to acknowledges ownership of the code by the 'Post Office' i.e. it is not defined by the standard. The British Standard can say what it likes e.g. "the colour of Smarties will be that determined by the confectioner", so so long as the confectioner chooses the colour, then he is following the standard. If someone other than the confectioner were to choose the colour of the Smarties to be manufactured, the standard would not then be being followed. The standard doesn't say what the colours will be. In this case, the standard is effectively saying that it is whatever the 'Post Office' says, then goes on to attempt to describe the practice of the 'Post Office'. WLD 11:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are right that there appears to have been a very recent update - I'll reserve further comment until I have been able to delve deeper into its nature - 217.46.150.171 14:40, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks WLD 15:55, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Any update? Cheers. 85.158.137.195 08:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The standard describes the elements that make up an address, and state that one of those elements is postcode. The description of possible formats isn't a definitive part of the standard, because the format of postcodes is a matter for Royal Mail. Mayalld 15:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

UK Postcodes

Norwich now uses standard form postcodes: NRx yzz, (correctly stated in the detailed history) and not the original trial form NOR xxx (as claimed in the introductory section on possible formats).

what lottery?

Section #Postcode_lottery doesn't mention any lottery. --Jidanni 2007-03-12

"Postcode lottery" is a political cliche not a lottery and really shouldn't be in the article. It refers to unequal distribution of resources by geographical area. This can be eg NHS treatment or funding from the "good causes" bits of the national lottery. Secretlondon 13:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've made it a separate article. Andy Mabbett 13:17, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mailsort

This claims that the standard format of Postcodes "does not achieve its objective of primarily identifying the main sorting office and sub-office". But they do, mailsort customers dont have to you mailsort coedes they can use an OCR font which will provide 100% reco-rates off Royal Mail's Address Interpretation system. Mailsort codes are just an alternative if you are not using an OCR font for whatever reason. I think this part of the article is misleading, UK postcodes are to a resolution of thoroughfare or part thoroughfare. Much more accuate that some other countries (i.e. France) which have postcodes to delivery office level.

UK postcodes will resolve right down to, at most, around 50 adresses's, and as few at 15-ish. Also, with the introduction of DPC/DPS (Delivery Point Code/Delivery Point Suffix) automation sorting, automation will be able to resolve right down to individual adresses's. UK postcodes are not just SW1A 1AA, they are SW1A 1AA"A1" etc. This denotes individual adresses's within SW1A 1AA.

Croydon

The article says that CRO (oh) was allocated and then CR2, CR3. Later the artcile says that CR0 (zero) was not changed to CR1. Should that first CRO (oh) be a CR0 (zero)? -- SGBailey 19:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The number in the outward

I heard that the number in the first part of the postcode is the approximate distance in miles from the nearest main sorting office - so NG5 xxx is approx 5 miles from the main Nottingham sorting office. Is this true, and if so can details be sourced and added into the article. Burns flipper (talk) 18:45, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is not true. District numbers were generally assigned in a clockwise direction outwards from the '1' district in the main town or city. Could someone word this better and add it? 137.205.74.30 (talk) 22:06, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]