On 21/12/2020 15:59, Adam Snape wrote:
Hi,
Post towns may be somewhat arbitrary, but they are at least a
verifiable national scheme which we can use for addressing every
location in the country. That has to have some benefits compared to
each individual mapper deciding where they believe each address falls
- easy for many places, likely contentious for others. The other
consistent scheme we could use is tagging by local authority but
that's likely to annoy just as many people.
How are they verifiable? There is no open source that is compatible with
the OSM licence that I am aware of that lets us look up an address. If I
walk down a street, recording house numbers / names I know the number,
street name and the place I am in, I have no idea what RM choose as the
postal town. There are no name boards to see.
I also disagree with the assertion that post towns are no longer used
or only of use to RM. Whilst a street address and postcode should
suffice, there is an expectation that post is fully addressed. By
including the full address, post can still arrive at the correct
address despite an obscured, incorrect or illegible postcode. The
advantage of a consistent national scheme of addressing is as useful
to other couriers in this regard as it is to RM. If you should use
parcel labels supplied by the couriers I have usually found them to
follow RM's addressing scheme including the relevant post town.
Royal mail deliver by house number / name and street name. Ask a postie
- I have and they confirm that. The sorting above that (to divide into
rounds) goes by postcode. Latters without postcodes are delayed, even RM
say that in a round about way.
Other organisations use the RM address lists because that is the only
way to get addresses in the UK. They buy the PAF from Royal Mail then
adapt it as needed in their own system. They include the bunkum that RM
publish just because it is there. Postal towns were ALL about directing
post in bulk to Royal Mail sorting offices where ever they happened to
be and as postcodes because more established, postal town stopped being
useful. Most sorting office have been consolidated or closed, yet the
postal town part of the PAF has not changed - because it is no longer
useful. RM just can't be bothered to clean up useless data in the same
way they left the old counties in the PAF.
--
cheers
Chris Hill (chillly)
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