Full UK Postcode Database for Free
July 24th, 2008
It sounds nuts but for a limited time only Royal Mail are giving away copies of the full UK Postcode Database for free to those wishing to use it for the “Show Us a Better Way” competition currently being run by The Cabinet Office.
The Royal Mail has now kindly agreed to make the full PAF data sets available to those who want to use it for the purposes of this competition, but you will need to contact Royal Mail to discuss licensing.
Regardless of the fact that this data should be in the public domain anyway, this is pretty exciting. I’ve certainly put in a claim for my free copy. I’m sure it will arrive with all sorts of legal threats though, but nevermind.
Find out how to get your copy here
Posted in Web
July 25th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Sweet!
July 30th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I had to use geonames.org a while back for a project
It does UK postcodes -> geo coordinates as well as postcodes in nearly every country through a nice web service
However the postcode search definatly isnt street level, usually only locates to a town..
I do agree it should be free - it should be public domain data
July 30th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Yeah, geonames is good but I found it to be a little slow. Google Maps API which you can call via HTTP woithout any of the sexy JavaScript mapping geocodes UK postcodes pretty well to (down to the AAN N level). It also does an AMAZING job of resovling “random string representing a place name” to a real location on the globe.
I wrote a PHP class once that primarily used Google Maps API and fell back on geonames. It worked pretty well.
Streetmap.co.uk does a pretty good (unoffical) job of geocoding to street level. How to persuade the site to geocode for you is left as an excercise for the reader
July 31st, 2008 at 8:31 am
Does google maps do any postcode translations outside the UK?
July 31st, 2008 at 10:48 am
Yeah, it seems to try it’s best with most countries. US zip codes, French… um whatever they call them… i’m guessing they have pretty good data for most developed countries. You should give it a go. It’s really useful for applications where you want users to be able to enter addresses in a free-form kinda way but you ultimately want structured address data and most importantly some lovely long/lat coords.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Cheers buddy will definatly look into it
I work at the moment mostly on a parcel booking and tracking system
People entering addresses badly is obviously a big pain in the ass
August 16th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Hmm; people forget that the Royal Mail didn’t get their information for free. They have to constantly maintain their post code system (no matter how trivial one may think it is). In fact, if it were so easy to maintain then another entity could have provided a service to maintain postcodes.
It would be really nice if it were public domain, but it is unfair to expect an entity to maintain such information without being subsidised (whether their organisation is government funded or not).
It could easily be paid for using taxation, which would make sense if it were part of the public domain!
August 18th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Yeah, but it has been paid for by taxation. Don’t forget Royal Mail was built using public money before it was privatised. Funny how other countries manage to provide their postcode data for free!
August 19th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Oddly I agree with both Kel and Neil. The Royal Mail, built (and still heavily subsidised) with our hard earned money has a duty to provide us with some of the data they hold. But realistically they are a business like any other trying to compete in an ever more competitive arena. I see no reason however that the GPS coordinates for all UK postcodes could not be released into the public domain, whilst the full postcode address file remained a licensed product.
Businesses would still shell out for licensed access and updates to the data whilst the rest of us could legally obtain a less regularly updated public domain subset of the same data.
I’m almost certain that this would not affect profits. Some businesses would choose not to pay, but surely those would be the very same fly-by-night style businesses that are currently either not using postcode products or are using illicit postcode data anyway.
Everyone wins
August 20th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
For the record, Royal Mail has not been privatized and is wholly owned by the UK Government. It makes a modest profit (more on letters than parcels) and turns this profit over to the government. The Board of Royal Mail Group has to go back to the Government to argue the case to borrow some back to invest in automation, etc. It is operating in a commercial environment and finds it increasingly hard to compete.
As for postcodes, delivery staff continually feedback changes in buildings, properties, etc. to allow the PAF (Postal Address File)database to be kept up to date. It generates some revenue by selling quarterly updates to other businesses.
PP.