Post town

Last updated

Post town
CategoryPostal administration unit
Location United Kingdom
Found in Postcode areas
Number~1,500 (as of 2013)
Government
Subdivisions

A post town is a required part of all postal addresses in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and a basic unit of the postal delivery system. [1] Including the correct post town in the address increases the chance of a letter or parcel being delivered on time. Post towns in general originated as the location of delivery offices. As of 2004, their main function is to distinguish between localities or street names in addresses not including a postcode. [2]

Contents

Organisation

There are approximately 1,500 post towns which are organised by Royal Mail subject to its policy only to impose changes where it has a proven, economic and practical benefit to the organisation, covering its own cost. [2] Each post town usually corresponds to one or more postal districts (the "outward" part of the postcode, before the space); therefore, each post town can cover an area comprising many towns, urban districts and villages. Post towns rarely correspond exactly to administrative boundaries and their associated physical features. As such they often group a small minority of neighbourhoods, streets or houses together with a main settlement in a different county, area of local government or administration (including healthcare trust), constituency, European statistical region and/or traditional parish. This was a main reason why postal counties were abolished (but not prohibited) in 1996. [3]

In some places several post towns cover a single postal district (with each post town corresponding to one or more of its postcode sectors). There are anomalies where post towns and postcode sectors have a more unusual co-relation. For example, the postcode sector EH14 5 is split between three post towns: Juniper Green, Currie and Balerno. Its other postcode sectors are generally limited to one of these.

Usage

Royal Mail states that the post town must be included on all items and should be clearly written in capitals. [4] [5]

1 Vallance Road
LONDON
E2 1AA

The use of postcodes means that it is no longer necessary to include the former postal county in a postal address. Some post towns, known as special post towns, never required the inclusion of a postal county, either because the town was large or because it gave its name to the county.

Locality

In most places, additional locality information such as a village or suburb name is optionally added above the post town, giving a more specific location: the two largest "post town" cities named, for example, have many roads of the same name in different localities and the additional locality information is therefore essential if the postcode is wrongly recorded or unknown.

Where this is a disambiguating feature, Royal Mail terms this the "dependent locality". For a limited number of addresses a "double dependent locality" line is also required, preceding the dependent locality line: some examples include "Churwell, Morley, Leeds" and "Marton, Sinnington, York".

Locality information other than the post town is not always part of the official postal address. In particular, within the London post town, each postcode district name (which can conflict with administrative boundaries, see above) corresponds to a numbered postcode district and is therefore not required in the postal address whenever the postcode is used. For example, "Bethnal Green" is the name of the "E2" postcode district and is optional in the following address:

1 Vallance Road
Bethnal Green
LONDON
E2 1AA

If no valid postcode is provided, or if the sorting machine rejects the letter, the use of optional locality or county information may assist manual sorting. In the absence of a full valid postcode, locality often prevents ambiguity where there is more than one street with the same name covered by a post town or postcode district, or where post towns in different counties have the same name.

Via

Traditionally only, where a place such as a village was served by a post town entirely distinct from its location, the word "Via" or "Near" ("Nr.") was added before the post town. For example:

1 High Street
Cuffley
Via Potters Bar
EN6 1AA

However, the Royal Mail discourages this usage [1] because their optical character recognition technology and Mailsort lookup tables check for the post town at the beginning of a line if the postcode is missing, unreadable or incorrect. Additionally, "Near" and "Nr." can be confused with "North".

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Postcodes in the United Kingdom</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">London postal district</span> Post town

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The W postcode area, also known as the London W postcode area is a group of postcode districts covering part of central and part of West London, England. The area originates from the Western (W1) and Paddington (W2-14) districts of the London postal district. This area covers 35 postcode districts and around 18,554 live postcodes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Postal counties of the United Kingdom</span> Subdivisions of the United Kingdom

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Postal addresses in the Republic of Ireland</span> Postal code system of Ireland

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The B postcode area, also known as the Birmingham postcode area, is a group of 79 postcode districts in central England, within 15 post towns. These cover the central portion of the West Midlands, plus northeast Worcestershire, north and west Warwickshire, and part of southeast Staffordshire and a very small part of Leicestershire. It is the most populated postcode area in the United Kingdom, with a population of over 1.9 million.

The NW postcode area, also known as the London NW postcode area, is a group of 13 postcode districts covering around 13,895 live postcodes within part of northwest London, England. It is the successor of the NW sector, originally created as part of the London postal district in 1856.

The SE postcode area covers a broad area of the south-east of the London, England post town from the Albert Embankment to West Heath and the nearest edges of Sidcup and Selhurst. It loosely corresponds to the boroughs of Southwark, Lewisham and Greenwich plus indicated parts of the boroughs of Croydon (north), Lambeth (east), Bexley (west) and Bromley (northwest).

The SO postcode area, also known as the Southampton postcode area, is a group of 23 postcode districts in southern England, within nine post towns. These cover south and central Hampshire, including Southampton, Winchester, Alresford, Brockenhurst, Eastleigh, Lymington, Lyndhurst, Romsey and Stockbridge.

The SW postcode area, also known as the London SW postcode area, is a group of 20 postcode districts within the London post town in England. The area comprises the South Western operational district and the Battersea operational district, and is the only area within the London post town to lie on both sides of the River Thames.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Postcodes in Australia</span> Numeric codes in Australia

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The British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar has introduced the postal code GX11 1AA. This is pending the introduction of a postcode system similar to that used in the United Kingdom. This has been under consideration by the Government of Gibraltar since 2006. The postcode is not required for local mail.

References

  1. 1 2 Royal Mail, Address Management Guide, (2004)
  2. 1 2 "Review of Royal Mail's Licence Condition 20 – Postcode Address File Code of Practice: a Decision Document" (PDF). Postal Services Commission. March 2004. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 October 2007. Retrieved 13 December 2009.
  3. "Pembrokeshire (Royal Mail Database) c218WH". Hansard. 23 June 2009. Retrieved 23 July 2009.
  4. "Addressing your mail". Royal Mail. Retrieved 25 October 2012.
  5. "PAF Code of Practice" (PDF). Royal Mail. p. 3. Retrieved 7 October 2015.