CODEWITHSUNDEEP
postal-code
Paul
Paul

Reputation: 1509

UK Postcode look up by street, on a budget of £0.00

I'm planning a site which will need to have the ability to search for an address using partial details, like street name. Addresses are integral to the whole working of the app.

Does anyone have any suggestions how I can manage this, given how the Royal Mail is wholly owned by the UK government but the information is not public domain?

The idea will need to be scrapped if I can't get this information.

Thanks, Paul

UPDATE:

I'm not interested in getting into a debate about whether I will make money or how anyone would know that. My question is not about whether the data should be freely available to everyone, which I think it should be given we are tax payers, the government answers to us, and the government owns the private company that owns the mail service.

This question has definitely run its course, but thanks for all the comments... :)

Upvotes: 1

Views: 583

Answers (3)

gbn
gbn

Reputation: 432421

The information is the public domain. I can lookup a postcode.

Royal Mail tells you why there is a limit of 15 lookups.

I'd also add that more than 15 lookups means commercial gain or profit: so you should pay for this information. As per their commercial products page.

Edit:

Let's say the website using this data is free, non-profit, charity, whatever. So you get access to the PAF for free. My website hits your web site to get free access to the PAF.

Upvotes: 2

James
James

Reputation: 3275

Was just searching for a news article I remembered and found this :-)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/sep/16/wikileaks-postcode-file-free-data The link to Wikileaks is broken but maybe you can find it still.

Upvotes: 0

BugFinder
BugFinder

Reputation: 17868

The problem is PAF (the postoffice address finder) is pretty much the only real answer as postcodes change more than we like to talk about. Your company would have to face the cost of paying for it. Having done a lot of work with postcodes in the past, I am not aware of a system that lets you have this information free.. I believe even if you tried to reverse engineer it from data lists (eg electoral roll etc) you have to pay for a full DB.

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions