Sorry for my asking the question not directly linked to the mainstream of this mailing list but I am desperate to know this.
I am looking for a free of charge UK postcode database. It's for the purpose of the website I am programming currently, which is of non-commercial nature. The first part of the post code, the out code, would be enough to serve my purpose. I need to know names of towns corresponding to particular out codes and to be able to calculate the distances between post codes. Can you recommend anything reliable?
BTW. which out of chargeable resellers of such database would you be likely to choose considering that you don't want to spend a lot of money.
-- LB
On Mon, Feb 18, 2008 at 11:26:04AM +0000, LB wrote:
Sorry for my asking the question not directly linked to the mainstream of this mailing list but I am desperate to know this.
I am looking for a free of charge UK postcode database. It's for the purpose of the website I am programming currently, which is of non-commercial nature. The first part of the post code, the out code, would be enough to serve my purpose. I need to know names of towns corresponding to particular out codes and to be able to calculate the distances between post codes. Can you recommend anything reliable?
http://www.npemap.org.uk/ or http://www.freethepostcode.org/
are the only places I can think of that'll provide you with data you can use without charge.
J.
On Mon, 2008-02-18 at 11:26 +0000, LB wrote:
I am looking for a free of charge UK postcode database. It's for the purpose of the website I am programming currently, which is of non-commercial nature.
I don't think you'll find a good quality postcode database for free. You might want to investigate the google maps api, which is free as in you don't have to pay money to use it. Check whether the licensing allows you to do what you want with it though. http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/
Regarding commercial suppliers you could try http://www.afd.co.uk, although last I checked I didn't like the licensing or pricing much.
If you wanted to be a bit dodgy they do a low-end product that limits the types of query you can do and the number of results that you can get out of it in a single query. However it provides a C api that means you can write a small program to make lots of small queries and grab all the results, thereby making your own database which you can do what you want with. That would probably be against the license terms and I absolutely wouldn't suggest doing that though.
Joe
Joe Button joe@paston.co.uk wrote:
On Mon, 2008-02-18 at 11:26 +0000, LB wrote:
I am looking for a free of charge UK postcode database. It's for the purpose of the website I am programming currently, which is of non-commercial nature.
I don't think you'll find a good quality postcode database for free. You might want to investigate the google maps api, which is free as in you don't have to pay money to use it. Check whether the licensing allows you to do what you want with it though.
I'd avoid google maps for postcode at the moment. Not just because of my usual dislike of google, but because it has been badly wrong on postcodes recently, often out by more than a mile. Worst error so far was three miles and three villages away from the actual location.
In general, I'm a bit unhappy with postcodes. LongLat is much simpler.
On Mon, 2008-02-18 at 14:25 +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
LongLat is much simpler.
True enough..but asking a customer to type in their LongLat for a estimation of delivery cost or to get an approximation of their position is hardly user friendly as most people can remember their postcode but how many have memorised their LongLat ?
Given that LB seems to be interested in the out code only, it doesn't look like a great degree of accuracy is required for this instance. The wrong village thing is a concern however, is it unique to google for the instances you have found ?
On a vaguely related note, recently I was concerned that our local sorting office seemed to have moved but be able to retain the same postcode despite moving to the other side of town. I presume this is a special case where Sorting offices have a "special" post code, but it seems broken behaviour to me. I did just try and confirm that this is still true but the Royal Mail website seems unable or unwilling to reveal the addresses of sorting offices. Should have known.
There was a bit of havoc in Bury last year when they moved the sorting office and even the main post office staff didn't know exactly where. They sent out "we have moved cards" to many Bury Addresses, but if you discarded the card or didn't get one and then got "carded" for a delivery you had to work hard to discover that the new sorting office was in the middle of a building site on the outer fringe of Bury with no signposts to direct you there or even indicate the (new) street name..nor did the failed delivery card indicate where it could be found.
I discovered the post code thing because a news article gave me the address of the new office but a search on Google via the postcode pointed me at the old location.
Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk wrote:
True enough..but asking a customer to type in their LongLat for a estimation of delivery cost or to get an approximation of their position is hardly user friendly as most people can remember their postcode but how many have memorised their LongLat ?
Me, but I keep playing with mapping systems and satellite aiming.
Given that LB seems to be interested in the out code only, it doesn't look like a great degree of accuracy is required for this instance. The wrong village thing is a concern however, is it unique to google for the instances you have found ?
Yes, it has been, so far. In this particular case, mistakes have been fixed fairly quickly once reported. It does look rather like they sometimes mis-map their postcode database to whatever internal grid they're using, as all postcodes in an area are off by a similar translation.
Regards,
On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:26:04 +0000 LB blmaillist@googlemail.com allegedly wrote:
I am looking for a free of charge UK postcode database. It's for the purpose of the website I am programming currently, which is of non-commercial nature. The first part of the post code, the out code, would be enough to serve my purpose. I need to know names of towns corresponding to particular out codes and to be able to calculate the distances between post codes. Can you recommend anything reliable?
BTW. which out of chargeable resellers of such database would you be likely to choose considering that you don't want to spend a lot of money.
LB
I contacted a friend of mine who works for a company which produces postcoder software about your query. He gave me the answer below. Feel free to follow up if you choose. I have no commercial axe to grind.
Mick
-------------- Alan's reply-------
Mick,
Unfortunately Royal Mail have the copyright on anything with a postcode in it. If there is such a thing as a free UK postcode/town/grid ref database then I think RM would be very interested to know who was supplying it! We are even considering not charging for some of our software because the charge for the data swamps the price of the software (and we make a bit on reselling the data in our own optimised database).
There are several options: (1) Buy raw data - we can supply this in virtually any format but nobody seems to want it in anything other than CSV. I doubt anyone sells it for less than we do but I can't say for sure. Price varies depending on exactly what bits and pieces you want and frequency of updates etc. With raw data you can do virtually anything but on a DIY basis. If you have fairly one-dimensional needs then the DIY bit may be fairly easy.
(2) Buy an API product - this would allow full access to the RM data. We do one - the main part of the price is the RM data, which is a recurring charge. Price depends on type of usage and I don't know offhand what that is! The database is indexed on town (and just about everything else), so the outcode->town mapping would be no probs. Distance between postcodes can be done using simple pythagoras using grid refs for the 2 postcodes.
(3) Use a web service - for a web site this would provide per-click charging, i.e. for each address lookup there is a set charge. Price varies from about 5-10p per lookup to 1p depending on volumes etc. Unfortunately the outcode->town lookup could not be done economically using our web service - it's more geared to simple address checking.
(4) Use a combination of the above. e.g. Buy raw data, use it to get the outcode->town mapping. This particular data very rarely changes, so you could probably avoid updates for a few years. We can supply the outcode->town mapping pre-prepared, and this would probably be cheaper. The distance between bit can be done with a per-click charge using a web service.
(5) Wikepedia does have some Postcode area->Area Name mappings (this is not quite the same as "outcode", e.g. for Norwich the area is NR, but the outcodes are NR1, NR2, NR3 etc.). This might be sufficient for his purposes, but he would still need grid references for the distance calcs and as far as I know they are not freely available anywhere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_postcode_areas_in_the_United_Kingdom
There's also Postcode area -> Post Town mappings at http://www.evoxfacilities.co.uk/evoxptn.html again doesn't have the full outcode.
So, I suggest he looks at the stuff at the links above to see if that meets part of his needs. Then contact our sales guys www.allies-computing.co.uk - they will help him figure out options, give him no obligation quotes and let him have free sample data and evaluate the web service for 21 days free of charge but with full technical support.
-------------end Alan's reply ----
Mick
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On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:26:04 +0000 LB blmaillist@googlemail.com allegedly wrote:
I am looking for a free of charge UK postcode database. It's for the purpose of the website I am programming currently, which is of non-commercial nature. The first part of the post code, the out code, would be enough to serve my purpose. I need to know names of towns corresponding to particular out codes and to be able to calculate the distances between post codes. Can you recommend anything reliable?
BTW. which out of chargeable resellers of such database would you be likely to choose considering that you don't want to spend a lot of money.
LB
I contacted a friend of mine who works for a company which produces postcoder software about your query. He gave me the answer below. Feel free to follow up if you choose. I have no commercial axe to grind.
Mick
-------------- Alan's reply-------
Mick,
Unfortunately Royal Mail have the copyright on anything with a postcode in it. If there is such a thing as a free UK postcode/town/grid ref database then I think RM would be very interested to know who was supplying it! We are even considering not charging for some of our software because the charge for the data swamps the price of the software (and we make a bit on reselling the data in our own optimised database).
There are several options: (1) Buy raw data - we can supply this in virtually any format but nobody seems to want it in anything other than CSV. I doubt anyone sells it for less than we do but I can't say for sure. Price varies depending on exactly what bits and pieces you want and frequency of updates etc. With raw data you can do virtually anything but on a DIY basis. If you have fairly one-dimensional needs then the DIY bit may be fairly easy.
(2) Buy an API product - this would allow full access to the RM data. We do one - the main part of the price is the RM data, which is a recurring charge. Price depends on type of usage and I don't know offhand what that is! The database is indexed on town (and just about everything else), so the outcode->town mapping would be no probs. Distance between postcodes can be done using simple pythagoras using grid refs for the 2 postcodes.
(3) Use a web service - for a web site this would provide per-click charging, i.e. for each address lookup there is a set charge. Price varies from about 5-10p per lookup to 1p depending on volumes etc. Unfortunately the outcode->town lookup could not be done economically using our web service - it's more geared to simple address checking.
(4) Use a combination of the above. e.g. Buy raw data, use it to get the outcode->town mapping. This particular data very rarely changes, so you could probably avoid updates for a few years. We can supply the outcode->town mapping pre-prepared, and this would probably be cheaper. The distance between bit can be done with a per-click charge using a web service.
(5) Wikepedia does have some Postcode area->Area Name mappings (this is not quite the same as "outcode", e.g. for Norwich the area is NR, but the outcodes are NR1, NR2, NR3 etc.). This might be sufficient for his purposes, but he would still need grid references for the distance calcs and as far as I know they are not freely available anywhere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_postcode_areas_in_the_United_Kingdom
There's also Postcode area -> Post Town mappings at http://www.evoxfacilities.co.uk/evoxptn.html again doesn't have the full outcode.
So, I suggest he looks at the stuff at the links above to see if that meets part of his needs. Then contact our sales guys www.allies-computing.co.uk - they will help him figure out options, give him no obligation quotes and let him have free sample data and evaluate the web service for 21 days free of charge but with full technical support.
-------------end Alan's reply ----
Mick
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My apologies to the list for dual posting. I originally responded using my normal email address (which is not subscribed to the list). Having received a moderator message about this I reposted using my subscription address and then attempted to delete the earlier message.
Too late.....
Mick
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On 20 Feb 21:13, mbm wrote:
My apologies to the list for dual posting. I originally responded using my normal email address (which is not subscribed to the list). Having received a moderator message about this I reposted using my subscription address and then attempted to delete the earlier message.
Too late.....
Those darned list moderators, they're just too quick. ;)
-
Brett Parker -
Joe Button -
Jonathan McDowell -
LB -
mbm -
mick -
MJ Ray -
Wayne Stallwood