4 ms·

and you should send that info to royal mail and tell them they should bump some numbers up.

pjc50 9y ago
Royal Mail do not have the power to change people's house numbers or street names! I'm not quite sure who does, though. At the end they mention trying to get the local authority to do it. Some random googling found http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-21712890 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shet... , where several streets had no names at all for years and the problem was eventually fixed by the local authority.
- falsedan 9y ago
  > and the problem was eventually fixed What exactly was the problem? (emergency services were concerned that an ambiguous locating would delay their response).
  - dsr_ 9y ago
    Pre-GPS, post E911: if a road has sequential numbers, the ambulance can pass 235 Edge-of-Town Road looking for 237 Edge-of-Town Road, slow down to 15 mph looking for the next driveway, and miss saving a life because 237 is literally 3 miles further. The rationalizing plan associates numbers with distance, so 235 will be very close to 237 and a house 3 miles further will be numbered 873 or so, even with no other addresses in between. As long as they are re-addressing, they also remove all twin addresses in the same ZIP code -- only one 125 Main St allowed per ZIP. Sometimes this means re-naming streets. The house I grew up in changed from 85 to 421; our neighbor on the left was 417 and on the right was 435.
    - falsedan 9y ago
      Yeah but here all the lanes are within 700m of each other. There's clear lines of sight down each lane and three major cross-streets to gain access from[0]. I guess if a 999 call said that they're "on the lane near Gorden's Saddlery", that would add a significant delay as the paramedics might have to check 9 lanes. 0: https://goo.gl/maps/ArGeqNKwcJ52 https://goo.gl/maps/ArGeqNKwcJ52
- jlebrech 9y ago
  there's a difference between no names needing to be addressed and one address is 1 mile from the right one.
- arethuza 9y ago
  We don't have a house number or a street - I wonder who controls the registration of house "names" for rural properties? Edit: Found it: Our local authority (Fife) has an online form where you can request changes to property details and even request a new street be given a name: https://www.fifedirect.org.uk/topics/index.cfm?fuseaction=service.display&p2sid=FE858E04-FE16-D92D-A3352BB0E4D33BE4 https://www.fifedirect.org.uk/topics/index.cfm?fuseaction=se...
  - ghaff 9y ago
    In the US, a lot of that sort of thing was cleaned up for E911 services. Rural cottages without mail delivery and houses on rural delivery routes were given street numbers. Not sure who did the assigning though. Also, for example, roads that didn't actually connect in a navigable way in the middle were given different names as are roads with branches. A similar issue to that in the article exists in the US--perhaps especially in the Northeast where there are lots of relatively small towns that connect to each other and restart numbers. (Though in New England, they do often change street names.) [ADDED: Apparently they're assigned by local authorities in the US. [1]] [1] https://ribbs.usps.gov/npfpresentations/documents/tech_guides/2011/wheredoaddressescomefrom.pdf https://ribbs.usps.gov/npfpresentations/documents/tech_guide...
    - martey 9y ago
      I remember reading an article in The Atlantic from less than 5 years ago describing an ongoing naming effort in West Virginia: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/where-the-streets-have-no-name/309186/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/where-t... > West Virginia entrusted most of the mapping project to individual counties, tasking 911 directors with naming thousands of streets. Different directors subscribed to different naming philosophies. Mercer County’s director pulled names from local history books and Scrabble Web sites. Others Google-Mapped out-of-state towns for inspiration. Some directors gave residents the right to name their own streets, despite the risk that future generations would have to endure, in the case of one town, Crunchy Granola Road. In Raleigh County, some communities named their streets after Disney characters or Vietnam War battles.
- ig1 9y ago
  Yep, local councils have that power. In London this is granted to them under Local Government Act 1985 (Schedule 8, 14/1); not sure about outside London though.
  - twic 9y ago
    I have a mildly involved situation with numbering. I live in the top-floor flat at 29 Acacia Avenue, N4. There are two flats below me. Note to Americans: in the UK, the floor at street level is the ground floor, the one above that is the first floor, above that is the second floor, etc. According to the Royal Mail, the addresses here are 29, 29A, and 29B. The normal convention is for 29 to be the ground floor, and 29A and 29B to be the first- and second-floor flats; that appears to be the case based on current and previous occupants' post etc. All well and good. When i moved in, i was left some documentation from the letting agency who were running the place before that gave the address as 29C. I have seen no other mention of 29C. The Land Registry knows about three leaseholds here: 29, 29B, and 29. Yes, 29 appears twice. Based on the diagrams and descriptions in the registrations, one 29 is the ground floor flat, 29B is the first floor, the the second floor is 29. Mostly, this has no impact, and is just annoying. The one real-world consequence is that the bank who issued my neighbour's mortgage thinks her address is 29B, because that's what's on the leasehold they lent against, so i get her mortgage statements. I thought i'd get this corrected, so i wrote to the Land Registry, and they replied that they would change it if i sent them documentation from my street numbering authority, ie my council, stating the correct numbering. The council think the flats are called Flat 1, 29 Acacia Avenue, Flat 2, 29 Acacia Avenue, and Flat 3, 29 Acacia Avenue! I don't want the Land Registry to use those designations, as they're even further from the ground truth of what the Royal Mail thinks. I also don't want to risk triggering the Royal Mail updating its database, as that could screw up postal delivery. So i'm stuck. Meanwhile, and the Valuation Office Agency thinks the flats are called Ground Floor Flat, 29 Acacia Avenue, First Floor ... you get the idea. Fortunately, all these designations seem to interoperate alright. The VOA sets the bands for council tax, which the council collects, so somehow, the council are mapping those designations to their own ones. The council send me the bills for council tax at Flat 3, and the Royal Mail delivers them. Oh, and there's another 29 Acacia Avenue in N14, four files north. I get their post sometimes. EDIT: I spoke too soon. After writing this comment, i thought i'd register to manage my council tax online. The bill is actually sent to "Second Floor, 29 Acacia Avenue", but that address isn't in the list of options on the council's website, which only has "Flat 3, 29 Acacia Avenue". I can't select the former, and the latter is rejected as not matching my account number. Checkmate!
- gerdesj 9y ago
  Street naming and numbering dept of your district council. They notify Royal Mail.

Royal Mail do not have the power to change people's house numbers or street names! I'm not quite sure who does, though. At the end they mention trying to get the local authority to do it. Some random googling found http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-21712890 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shet... , where several streets had no names at all for years and the problem was eventually fixed by the local authority.

falsedan 9y ago
> and the problem was eventually fixed What exactly was the problem? (emergency services were concerned that an ambiguous locating would delay their response).
- dsr_ 9y ago
  Pre-GPS, post E911: if a road has sequential numbers, the ambulance can pass 235 Edge-of-Town Road looking for 237 Edge-of-Town Road, slow down to 15 mph looking for the next driveway, and miss saving a life because 237 is literally 3 miles further. The rationalizing plan associates numbers with distance, so 235 will be very close to 237 and a house 3 miles further will be numbered 873 or so, even with no other addresses in between. As long as they are re-addressing, they also remove all twin addresses in the same ZIP code -- only one 125 Main St allowed per ZIP. Sometimes this means re-naming streets. The house I grew up in changed from 85 to 421; our neighbor on the left was 417 and on the right was 435.
  - falsedan 9y ago
    Yeah but here all the lanes are within 700m of each other. There's clear lines of sight down each lane and three major cross-streets to gain access from[0]. I guess if a 999 call said that they're "on the lane near Gorden's Saddlery", that would add a significant delay as the paramedics might have to check 9 lanes. 0: https://goo.gl/maps/ArGeqNKwcJ52 https://goo.gl/maps/ArGeqNKwcJ52
jlebrech 9y ago
there's a difference between no names needing to be addressed and one address is 1 mile from the right one.
arethuza 9y ago
We don't have a house number or a street - I wonder who controls the registration of house "names" for rural properties? Edit: Found it: Our local authority (Fife) has an online form where you can request changes to property details and even request a new street be given a name: https://www.fifedirect.org.uk/topics/index.cfm?fuseaction=service.display&p2sid=FE858E04-FE16-D92D-A3352BB0E4D33BE4 https://www.fifedirect.org.uk/topics/index.cfm?fuseaction=se...
- ghaff 9y ago
  In the US, a lot of that sort of thing was cleaned up for E911 services. Rural cottages without mail delivery and houses on rural delivery routes were given street numbers. Not sure who did the assigning though. Also, for example, roads that didn't actually connect in a navigable way in the middle were given different names as are roads with branches. A similar issue to that in the article exists in the US--perhaps especially in the Northeast where there are lots of relatively small towns that connect to each other and restart numbers. (Though in New England, they do often change street names.) [ADDED: Apparently they're assigned by local authorities in the US. [1]] [1] https://ribbs.usps.gov/npfpresentations/documents/tech_guides/2011/wheredoaddressescomefrom.pdf https://ribbs.usps.gov/npfpresentations/documents/tech_guide...
  - martey 9y ago
    I remember reading an article in The Atlantic from less than 5 years ago describing an ongoing naming effort in West Virginia: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/where-the-streets-have-no-name/309186/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/where-t... > West Virginia entrusted most of the mapping project to individual counties, tasking 911 directors with naming thousands of streets. Different directors subscribed to different naming philosophies. Mercer County’s director pulled names from local history books and Scrabble Web sites. Others Google-Mapped out-of-state towns for inspiration. Some directors gave residents the right to name their own streets, despite the risk that future generations would have to endure, in the case of one town, Crunchy Granola Road. In Raleigh County, some communities named their streets after Disney characters or Vietnam War battles.
ig1 9y ago
Yep, local councils have that power. In London this is granted to them under Local Government Act 1985 (Schedule 8, 14/1); not sure about outside London though.
- twic 9y ago
  I have a mildly involved situation with numbering. I live in the top-floor flat at 29 Acacia Avenue, N4. There are two flats below me. Note to Americans: in the UK, the floor at street level is the ground floor, the one above that is the first floor, above that is the second floor, etc. According to the Royal Mail, the addresses here are 29, 29A, and 29B. The normal convention is for 29 to be the ground floor, and 29A and 29B to be the first- and second-floor flats; that appears to be the case based on current and previous occupants' post etc. All well and good. When i moved in, i was left some documentation from the letting agency who were running the place before that gave the address as 29C. I have seen no other mention of 29C. The Land Registry knows about three leaseholds here: 29, 29B, and 29. Yes, 29 appears twice. Based on the diagrams and descriptions in the registrations, one 29 is the ground floor flat, 29B is the first floor, the the second floor is 29. Mostly, this has no impact, and is just annoying. The one real-world consequence is that the bank who issued my neighbour's mortgage thinks her address is 29B, because that's what's on the leasehold they lent against, so i get her mortgage statements. I thought i'd get this corrected, so i wrote to the Land Registry, and they replied that they would change it if i sent them documentation from my street numbering authority, ie my council, stating the correct numbering. The council think the flats are called Flat 1, 29 Acacia Avenue, Flat 2, 29 Acacia Avenue, and Flat 3, 29 Acacia Avenue! I don't want the Land Registry to use those designations, as they're even further from the ground truth of what the Royal Mail thinks. I also don't want to risk triggering the Royal Mail updating its database, as that could screw up postal delivery. So i'm stuck. Meanwhile, and the Valuation Office Agency thinks the flats are called Ground Floor Flat, 29 Acacia Avenue, First Floor ... you get the idea. Fortunately, all these designations seem to interoperate alright. The VOA sets the bands for council tax, which the council collects, so somehow, the council are mapping those designations to their own ones. The council send me the bills for council tax at Flat 3, and the Royal Mail delivers them. Oh, and there's another 29 Acacia Avenue in N14, four files north. I get their post sometimes. EDIT: I spoke too soon. After writing this comment, i thought i'd register to manage my council tax online. The bill is actually sent to "Second Floor, 29 Acacia Avenue", but that address isn't in the list of options on the council's website, which only has "Flat 3, 29 Acacia Avenue". I can't select the former, and the latter is rejected as not matching my account number. Checkmate!
gerdesj 9y ago
Street naming and numbering dept of your district council. They notify Royal Mail.