On 5 June 2015 at 14:31, Colin Smale <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > The Royal Mail has deprecated the use of counties in addressing. The PAF > (Postcode Address File) no longer contains counties. > snip.. > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-GB mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb > > Just because the Royal Mail finds certain things convenient does not mean they are not relevant to addressing. This very issue arose at the OpenAddresses seminar last summer. It was clear that not only did many participants in support alternatives to the Royal Mail address hierarchy, there were also multiple needs from national & international businesses which were not met by the RM addresses.
An example from my own experience: failure to differentiate between the two Hayes in Greater London, cost a Spanish University involvement in a multi-million Euro project. They arrived 3 hours late for start of meeting by which time we had identified roles for everyone else. Hayes, Middlesex & Hayes, Kent are still better identifiers than using London Borough boundaries which are unlikely to be well known even by people from the other side of London. The fact that people identify with particular areas of their local geography might be ignored by the Royal Mail: there is no reason for OSM to do so. Remember the slogan "It is a foolish pretence of the Post Office that Rutland has ceased to exist" and the current name for the unitary authority for that area "Rutland County". Clearly the majority of people who live in Rutland are not only concious of the area, but place significant value on the fact that Rutland was a county. Jerry
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