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This is a long-running battle. Those with long memories may remember the skirmish 15 years ago, when a small group of developer-activists set up a website that

This is a long-running battle. Those with long memories may remember the skirmish 15 years ago, when a small group of developer-activists set up a website that allowed free access to postcode data (ernestmarples.com, named after the inventor of the modern British postcode system). Needless to say, it was rapidly shut down following threats of legal action by Royal Mail. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/oct/05/ernest-marples-royal-mail-postcodes-legal-threat https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/oct/05/ernest-ma... https://blog.okfn.org/2009/10/05/ernest-marples-uk-postcode-site-has-been-taken-down/ https://blog.okfn.org/2009/10/05/ernest-marples-uk-postcode-...

michaelt 2y ago
The postcode-to-coordinate data is now freely available as "CodePoint Open" So there's already data for people who want to know postcode AB10 1JL corresponds to the area around 57.14677,-2.09873 The PAF is a more detailed data source, as seen in https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode which can tell you that AB10 1JL specifically covers the addresses 102-104, Union Street, Aberdeen 82, Union Street, Aberdeen Timpson Shoe Repairs Ltd, 86 Union Street, Aberdeen Smart Mobile, 88 Union Street, Aberdeen 92 Union Street, Aberdeen 98 Union Street, Aberdeen The PAF is useful if you want to provide a "quick address entry" option on your website - and to validate address data. But if you just want postcode-to-location conversion, that info is already available.
- robinhouston 2y ago
  Thanks for the clarification. I’d forgotten that ernestmarples only offered postcode-to-location lookup: it was a long time ago. I suppose this is encouraging! It shows that the forces of openness are gaining ground in this battle.
- sahmeepee 2y ago
  Given that OSM has a lot of building addresses and locations (at least it has building names and numbers and the streets they are on, plus their outlines) I wonder how much of the PAF could be recreated from the data in CodePoint Open combined with OSM. If adding more house numbers etc to OSM would help improve that then it could be crowdsourced quite quickly via Street-Complete or similar. For the purposes of the quick address lookup it doesn't even need to be 100% accurate. If a property is incorrectly listed against two postcodes it won't really cause problems, so the lookup could err on the generous side

michaelt 2y ago

The postcode-to-coordinate data is now freely available as "CodePoint Open" So there's already data for people who want to know postcode AB10 1JL corresponds to the area around 57.14677,-2.09873 The PAF is a more detailed data source, as seen in https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode which can tell you that AB10 1JL specifically covers the addresses 102-104, Union Street, Aberdeen 82, Union Street, Aberdeen Timpson Shoe Repairs Ltd, 86 Union Street, Aberdeen Smart Mobile, 88 Union Street, Aberdeen 92 Union Street, Aberdeen 98 Union Street, Aberdeen The PAF is useful if you want to provide a "quick address entry" option on your website - and to validate address data. But if you just want postcode-to-location conversion, that info is already available.

robinhouston 2y ago
Thanks for the clarification. I’d forgotten that ernestmarples only offered postcode-to-location lookup: it was a long time ago. I suppose this is encouraging! It shows that the forces of openness are gaining ground in this battle.
sahmeepee 2y ago
Given that OSM has a lot of building addresses and locations (at least it has building names and numbers and the streets they are on, plus their outlines) I wonder how much of the PAF could be recreated from the data in CodePoint Open combined with OSM. If adding more house numbers etc to OSM would help improve that then it could be crowdsourced quite quickly via Street-Complete or similar. For the purposes of the quick address lookup it doesn't even need to be 100% accurate. If a property is incorrectly listed against two postcodes it won't really cause problems, so the lookup could err on the generous side