>> You don't need the postcode for Google Maps to locate the property: it's >> quite happy with a house number and road name. In fact for my address >> the >> location for address only is slightly more accurate than for >> address+postcode. > > If you had a source of addresses+postcode (a list of businesses or > streets etc.), you could use geonames.org to give a geolocation based > off the address alone.
Geonames isn't very accurate except where placename locations have been manually corrected, and certainly won't geocode to the street level. Google's address geocoding is pretty accurate. > That geolocation could be appended to the postcode. > This would give approximate data only, but a modification to npemap > could allow manual adjustments of postcode locations. Hmm.. you'd probably want a flag to mark uncorrected locations, to give some idea of data quality. >> Assuming that the old map has the road marked on it, of course, this >> doesn't work so well for new roads. > > Could the openstreetmap data be overlaid onto npemap? Or, now that OpenStreetMap is more complete, perhaps we should all focus on adding "postal_code" or "addr:postcode" tags to ways/buildings that we know the code for. This is actually better than associating a code with a single point, but more work to achieve as you'd need to know where the code boundaries are. Rummaging through bins on bin day, perhaps? Or should be recruit local postmen to tell us where the postcode boundaries change? Would their knowledge of their walks be too linked to the RoyalMail's protected data? Are they allowed to talk about postcodes? Cheers! Anthony -- www.fonant.com - Quality web sites Fonant Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company No. 7006596 Registered office: Grafton Lodge, 15 Grafton Road, Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 1QR _______________________________________________ Mailing list [email protected] Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public
