Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

takes.jamesomalley.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 317 posts

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#211

Post by bluGill »

aaronax wrote: post #185
bluGill wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are public, but the post office changes the last 4 digits every few months so there is no point in telling anyone what yours is. These days the post office can look up your street address and give you all the information they need - which is an 11 digit bar code good for the next week.

Based on my personal experience, I really doubt that the last 4 digits of the ZIP+4 are changing more often than once per decade or longer. I could see the delivery point of the 11-digit code changing every few months, but you are already aware of that code system so it is not simple confusion between the two on your part. Could you provide more information or a source?

20 years ago they changed all the time. Wikipedia doesn't mention this though. These days the post office can read the street address via computers and get the 11 digit code they need, so I suspect they don't need them. (for PO boxes the 9 digit code apparently doesn't change)

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#212

Post by gabesullice »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #184
gabesullice wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cautionary example of how data meets reality… My address in France is listed in the BAN… but only to the granularity of my street number (e.g., 123 Main St.). Unfortunately, that number corresponds to at least 7 different structures, 5 of which are apartment buildings. Of those 5 buildings, each has multiple stairwells with their own door and no line of communication between them—they might as well be separate buil…

Frankly, that just sounds like a fire code / building code issue. Are these "apartment buildings" legal for habitation, with actual legal separate apartments, and not some weird subdivision/subletting situation? In every place I have ever lived, having a clearly marked addresses and door numbers for apartments is required by the fire code. If there's an emergency that requires a fire or ambulance response, smoke in t…

> Are these "apartment buildings" legal for habitation, with actual legal separate apartments, and not some weird subdivision/subletting situation?

Yes. In fact the 'résidence' (the conglomeration of apartment buildings) is considered one of the nicer, more desirable, places to live in the city. In the US, each apartment would be called a condominium [1], i.e., most are individually owned and not rented out.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condominium

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#213

Post by cameldrv »

Propelloni wrote: post #133
gabesullice wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cautionary example of how data meets reality… My address in France is listed in the BAN… but only to the granularity of my street number (e.g., 123 Main St.). Unfortunately, that number corresponds to at least 7 different structures, 5 of which are apartment buildings. Of those 5 buildings, each has multiple stairwells with their own door and no line of communication between them—they might as well be separate buil…

This sounds like bad design by the property developer and a sloppy building authority. The first is corroborated by the lack of unit numbers. Who does such a thing? The BAN actually only tracks down to the plot level, so I assume all your structures are on the same plot. From there on it is the building authorities job to check building plans and to enter the substructures into the cadastre, where they are usually le…

I don’t know what’s usual in France, but it’s usual in Germany for apartments to not have numbers. You have to put your name on your mailbox, and there’s no way to address something to someone who doesn’t live in the apartment. If you’re filling out government forms, you sometimes have to put in something like “third floor left side” so they know where you actually live.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#214

Post by masfuerte »

willyt wrote: post #195
londons_explore wrote: post #71

The simple solution here is a threat from the government to Royal Mail. Give us your postcode file for free, or we will simply make up a new numbering scheme, send an address card to every house telling them of their new number with their next council tax bill, and postcodes will become a thing of the past. The new numbering scheme will be unique to each house too, and have a check digit so the number alone is suffic…

Every property already has a UPRN (unique property reference number). If you go on a council website and find a recent planning application it will be linked with this UPRN in the council's database. If I ever want to find a postcode I go to the find a planning application map and look it up there. I've not checked this in England, but it's definitely the case in Scotland. e.g. here's a random example; the entry for…

You can look it up here:

https://www.findmyaddress.co.uk/

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#215

Post by ascorbic »

normangray wrote: post #103
ascorbic wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Additionally private map providers (e.g. Google, Apple) must surely have this data (since they are able to route navigation to private addresses). Why not just negotiate with them? They licence it from Royal Mail

Probably, but not necessarily. The article points out that the PAF is kept up to date by virtue of thousands of postmen and postwomen physically visiting the rows in the database on a daily basis, as part of normal business, and logging updates. That level of routine maintenance is what any non-PostOffice PAF alternative would have to also do. Amazon, and probably Google Maps, are two of the very small number of orga…

They allow you to search by postcode, so they license at least that much.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#216

Post by ascorbic »

scott_w wrote: post #189
knallfrosch wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the government decided that it does want to do this, it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail. You can pass the law, get sued and pay whatever the PAF is worth. But that's just.. fair? The govnerment spent 5 mio just for a survey concluding that it's impossible to recreate the PAF. So hundreds of millions sounds like a go…

Just to be clear: UK Parliament is sovereign. If it passes a law forcibly legalising it, the privatised Royal Mail can sue the government but would need to find an international treaty obligation to win. Even then, if Parliament flagged it and said "we're ignoring this treaty in this case" then the courts are bound to the law, not treaty obligations. If it has knock-on impacts in other areas, it's hard to say, but th…

Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the ECHR covers exactly this, so the Supreme Court (and ECtHR if it came to that) would probably find in favour of Royal Mail if this were to be done without compensation.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#217

Post by normangray »

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #168

It blows my mind how many public services have been privatized in the UK. It just feels like they're selling off the shoes they're standing in. When their railways got privatized, the service didn't improve, the price just ballooned. Even in the states, the USPS has resisted privatization this far. For the love of god I hope it continues to. Protect our boys n girls in blue and tell your congressman you want postal b…

Yup. The Post Office, the railways, the water system, for heavens' sake!

The tories, as a matter of religious faith, see privatised => efficient, whilst being unclear on the difference between 'efficient at creating shareholder value' and 'efficient at serving the public good'. The political mood music, over the last few decades, has meant that the Labour party has repeatedly found itself obliged to say positive things about privatisation, as part of the process of Being Sensible About The Economy (there is a much longer alternative version of this comment!).

The US -- the world temple of capitalism -- seems to be oddly principled (viewed from outside) about keeping certain things such as the postal service, or USGS, as part of the service to the public realm.

The one service probably immune from privatisation is the Health Service. It's only the most frothing-at-the-mouth right-wingers, the provocateurs just one step away from a rabies injection, who'd even admit out loud to a desire to do that. A politician talking about privatising the NHS would I think be pretty much equivalent to a US libertarian politician talking about privatising the armed forces.

(there's a longer version of that comment, as well...)

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#218

Post by ascorbic »

sowbug wrote: post #208
pxeger1 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail Why not? Parliament has the ability to make whatever laws it wants, no?

In the US, the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution says the government cannot take private property for public use without providing just compensation. I don't know whether any similar right exists in the UK.

Yes, it's in the European Convention on Human Rights, which despite the name also covers companies' rights.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#219

Post by terribleperson »

bluGill wrote: post #176
dmurray wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US also has 9-digit postcodes which usually map to a single building or smaller: aren't they public too?

They are public, but the post office changes the last 4 digits every few months so there is no point in telling anyone what yours is. These days the post office can look up your street address and give you all the information they need - which is an 11 digit bar code good for the next week.

My 9-digit zip hasn't changed in at least 10 years.

Re: We need to liberate the Postcode Address File

#220

Post by ascorbic »

psd1 wrote: post #205
ascorbic wrote: post #60

As he points out, this was a profoundly stupid mistake made when privatising Royal Mail. It would have been trivially easy to do at that point, but now it's a lot harder. If the government decided that it does want to do this, it can't just pass a law that says "the PAF is now free" without paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Royal Mail. That's quite apart from the ongoing costs of maintaining th…

No mistake; Hanlon's Razor does not apply; the current situation is a desired outcome.

No, I'm pretty sure this one was incompetence. It came at the same time that the government was going all-in with open data in other areas, and this was a really stupid omission.
Post reply on HN