London Banter - View Single Post - [OT] Postal counties to be dropped from the Postcode Address File

Tim Roll-Pickering · August 3rd 10, 02:57 PM posted to uk.transport.london

wrote:

I can think of some addresses where you could be some distance from your
intended destination. Try Trinity College, Cambridge CB2 1TQ. Postcodes
define points for deliver of mail, not a large sprawl of buildings
covering a large chunk of central Cambridge.

And of course there's the nightmare of courier firms trying to deliver to
those sorts of addresses. I don't know if it's the case in Cambridge but a
lot of universities have a tendency to use a single postcode for the entire
campus. This is fine for Royal Mail who either deliver to a central mail
room or who get used to looking at the building information (for example
I've recently discovered that in my Kent days I was using the wrong post
code for my college/halls, instead giving out the postcode for the central
registry) but it can be a real nightmare for a courier firm with limited
experience of the destination and who find the address supplied does not
contain sufficient information. My current QMUL department gives out an
address that's fine for mail but it would be incomprehensible to anyone
trying to deliver a package, especially at this time of year when a lot of
people actually on the campus are from conferences et al and won't know
which building a particular department office is in, let alone how to find
it. (And the Royal Mail's online post code finder is useless for trying to
divine a more specific code.)