On Sun, 01 Aug 2010 23:35:36 +0100, "Richard J."
wrote:

I don't see why the UK postal addresses shouldn't be the same as
Continental ones - i.e. just "number streetname, town postcode".

Because our postcode system has a far finer resolution than most other
countries, and therefore enables greater automation and efficiency in
Royal Mail (in theory), as well as enabling many other applications such
as satnav and location finding on online maps. Why would you want to
degrade our excellent postcode system?

When did I say I wanted to do that? I basically agreed that the
principle of a county in an address was pointless and that we should
use:-

"20 Anystreet
Anytown AB1 2CD"

as our address format. Of course, you only *need* "20 AB1 2CD", but
the inclusion of the street and post town provide a useful "checksum"
to ensure the postcode is correct, and the street address probably
assists the postman on his walk as well.

We could feasibly go to "20 Anystreet AB1 2CD" and even remove the
post town, but without any kind of "checksum" I would imagine a lot
more post would end up in the wrong place.

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
To reply put my first name before the at.

On 2 Aug, 07:01, Neil Williams wrote:
On Sun, 01 Aug 2010 23:35:36 +0100, "Richard J."

wrote:
I don't see why the UK postal addresses shouldn't be the same as
Continental ones - i.e. just "number streetname, town postcode".

Because our postcode system has a far finer resolution than most other
countries, and therefore enables greater automation and efficiency in
Royal Mail (in theory), as well as enabling many other applications such
as satnav and location finding on online maps. *Why would you want to
degrade our excellent postcode system?

When did I say I wanted to do that? *I basically agreed that the
principle of a county in an address was pointless and that we should
use:-

"20 Anystreet
Anytown AB1 2CD"

as our address format. *Of course, you only *need* "20 AB1 2CD", but
the inclusion of the street and post town provide a useful "checksum"
to ensure the postcode is correct, and the street address probably
assists the postman on his walk as well.

We could feasibly go to "20 Anystreet AB1 2CD" and even remove the
post town, but without any kind of "checksum" I would imagine a lot
more post would end up in the wrong place.

Your first suggestion is already the "correct" postal address
according to the Royal Mail. I think the story was about dropping the
county field from the database, rather than not having to use it.

Deleting anything from databases always seems risky practice to me,
but I suppose it would be archived somehow.

MIG wrote:

Deleting anything from databases always seems risky practice to me,
but I suppose it would be archived somehow.

True but in this case they have multiple counties in the database to handle
the various changes over the years (and even list some unitary authorities
as "counties") and it's probable that the regular shake-ups of local
government are creaing so many variants that it's getting too much for the
system. Having to field endless complaints about people being in the "wrong"
county can't help either.

In message , at 15:20:46 on Mon, 2 Aug
2010, Tim Roll-Pickering remarked:

Having to field endless complaints about people being in the "wrong"
county can't help either.

That's a self-inflicted injury because of the way they encourage other
(non-Post Office) people to use the database as a way of defining the
hinterland of where people live. As a result, it has a huge number of
false positives and negatives, and simply deleting some of the database
it not necessarily going to help very much.
--
Roland Perry

as our address format. Of course, you only *need* "20 AB1 2CD", but
the inclusion of the street and post town provide a useful "checksum"
to ensure the postcode is correct, and the street address probably
assists the postman on his walk as well.

We could feasibly go to "20 Anystreet AB1 2CD" and even remove the
post town, but without any kind of "checksum" I would imagine a lot
more post would end up in the wrong place.

I think one problem is that the concept of the post town isn't something
that has ever really been effectively communicated to the public at large as
it has always caused confusion when counties have been included in the
address. Presumably it may also not be immediately useful to postal
services other than the Royal Mail who might organise their network
differently. Without looking it up I couldn't actually tell you if the
county in the address file is the county the post town is in, or the county
the address is in, and even then the county can be debatable too. I think
it has always been in the wrong part of the address and that people should
have been encouraged to write addresses something like:

Name
Number Street (or building name etc)
Town (or village or whatever - NOT the post town).
County

BIT TO HELP OUT CARRIER

BIT TO HELP OUT CARRIER would be Post Town and Post Code if using Royal
Mail but could be potentially something completely different for other
carriers. So there is basically an address that the public at large would
understand that would also allow the carrier to deliver accurately if need
be, and a separate bit that is there to help make delivery more efficient.

Neil Williams wrote on 02 August 2010
07:01:18 ...
On Sun, 01 Aug 2010 23:35:36 +0100, "Richard J."
wrote:

I don't see why the UK postal addresses shouldn't be the same as
Continental ones - i.e. just "number streetname, town postcode".

Because our postcode system has a far finer resolution than most other
countries, and therefore enables greater automation and efficiency in
Royal Mail (in theory), as well as enabling many other applications such
as satnav and location finding on online maps. Why would you want to
degrade our excellent postcode system?

When did I say I wanted to do that? I basically agreed that the
principle of a county in an address was pointless and that we should
use:-

"20 Anystreet
Anytown AB1 2CD"

as our address format.

- which is what the UK recommended format has been for many years. Your
reference to Continental practice and "town postcode" led me to think
that you were advocating one postcode per town as on the Continent
(except the Netherlands).

--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

Neil Williams wrote:
When did I say I wanted to do that? I basically agreed that the
principle of a county in an address was pointless and that we should
use:-

"20 Anystreet
Anytown AB1 2CD"

as our address format. Of course, you only *need* "20 AB1 2CD", but
the inclusion of the street and post town provide a useful "checksum"
to ensure the postcode is correct, and the street address probably
assists the postman on his walk as well.

Depends on how much you need the checksum. If you have an address like:

J. Jones
1 Station Road
Newport
smudge

Should that go to Newport (Isle of Wight), Newport (Gwent), Newport
(Telford & Wrekin), Newport (Hants) or Newport (Essex)? How many
places do you have to send the letter around to find if a Mr Jones lives
there?

Yes I know the county names are broken in some of those (that's what Google
gives, which is presumably from the PAF) but that's the PAF's fault for not
keeping up. I suppose Newport, Newport (Newport unitary authority) rather
messes things up. You could always have Newport, Casnewydd instead

Theo

On 2010\08\02 11:30, Theo Markettos wrote:
Neil wrote:
When did I say I wanted to do that? I basically agreed that the
principle of a county in an address was pointless and that we should
use:-

"20 Anystreet
Anytown AB1 2CD"

as our address format. Of course, you only *need* "20 AB1 2CD", but
the inclusion of the street and post town provide a useful "checksum"
to ensure the postcode is correct, and the street address probably
assists the postman on his walk as well.

Depends on how much you need the checksum. If you have an address like:

J. Jones
1 Station Road
Newport
smudge

Should that go to Newport (Isle of Wight), Newport (Gwent), Newport
(Telford& Wrekin), Newport (Hants) or Newport (Essex)? How many
places do you have to send the letter around to find if a Mr Jones lives
there?

Since you're the post office, and you delivered the mail yesterday and
the day before, you should know which Station Road has a Mr Jones in it,
i.e. the person's name is a checksum.

Basil Jet wrote:
On 2010\08\02 11:30, Theo Markettos wrote:
Should that go to Newport (Isle of Wight), Newport (Gwent), Newport
(Telford& Wrekin), Newport (Hants) or Newport (Essex)? How many
places do you have to send the letter around to find if a Mr Jones lives
there?

Since you're the post office, and you delivered the mail yesterday and
the day before, you should know which Station Road has a Mr Jones in it,
i.e. the person's name is a checksum.

Indeed. But do you ring up the delivery offices in each of those places and
try to get through to the postie who happens to do that round? Or do you
play (literal!) pass-the-parcel around all the various possible sorting
offices until you find one who recognise the name? Which could take weeks
(for example, if a postie was on holiday).

Theo

On 2010\08\02 18:02, Theo Markettos wrote:
Basil wrote:
On 2010\08\02 11:30, Theo Markettos wrote:
Should that go to Newport (Isle of Wight), Newport (Gwent), Newport
(Telford& Wrekin), Newport (Hants) or Newport (Essex)? How many
places do you have to send the letter around to find if a Mr Jones lives
there?

Since you're the post office, and you delivered the mail yesterday and
the day before, you should know which Station Road has a Mr Jones in it,
i.e. the person's name is a checksum.

Indeed. But do you ring up the delivery offices in each of those places and
try to get through to the postie who happens to do that round? Or do you
play (literal!) pass-the-parcel around all the various possible sorting
offices until you find one who recognise the name? Which could take weeks
(for example, if a postie was on holiday).

No, the scanner that currently does OCR on the postcode of every letter
would also do OCR on the text that precedes the postcode and store every
combination to allow subsequent comparison on letters where the postcode
is unreadable.