How short can I make my home address?
September 1, 2010 2:59 AM Subscribe
In the UK, is there any need to include anything other than house number, street name, town name and post code?
Often UK addresses will be in the following format:
[House Number] [Street Name]
[Area Name]
[Town Name]
[County Name]
[Post Code]
An "area name" could be a suburb of a town, for example.
Is there any reason to include the area and county names or can I just leave this off? Will this make it harder to deliver post to me?
Let's say I am living in a large well known place, such as a student hall, and also in a large well known city. Would these effect whether it is necessary to include these details?
Often UK addresses will be in the following format:
[House Number] [Street Name]
[Area Name]
[Town Name]
[County Name]
[Post Code]
An "area name" could be a suburb of a town, for example.
Is there any reason to include the area and county names or can I just leave this off? Will this make it harder to deliver post to me?
Let's say I am living in a large well known place, such as a student hall, and also in a large well known city. Would these effect whether it is necessary to include these details?
I'm pretty sure all you need for your post to get to you is the post code - which gets it to a fairly specific area, and the house number and street - which the actual post-person uses to deliver it. The rest (area, town, county) is redundant, as the postcode contains that information, but there's not really any reason not to put it on there.
I think I'd still include it just to be safe, e.g. if the postcode is obscured or smudged and isn't machine-readable any more, the full address will still allow the post to be delivered.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:06 AM on September 1, 2010
I think I'd still include it just to be safe, e.g. if the postcode is obscured or smudged and isn't machine-readable any more, the full address will still allow the post to be delivered.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:06 AM on September 1, 2010
Best answer: Here's what the Royal Mail says.
Part of the reason why you should specify more than just person / house number / postcode is so that the letter can still be delivered if the postcode becomes defaced or is otherwise unreadable.
County isn't all that useful unless you're sending something to (for example) St. Ives and don't know the postcode. Area is likewise not useful unless it helps in disambiguation.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 3:10 AM on September 1, 2010
Part of the reason why you should specify more than just person / house number / postcode is so that the letter can still be delivered if the postcode becomes defaced or is otherwise unreadable.
County isn't all that useful unless you're sending something to (for example) St. Ives and don't know the postcode. Area is likewise not useful unless it helps in disambiguation.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 3:10 AM on September 1, 2010
Technically all you need is house number and post code. I've tried this once or twice and the post arrives. Not all post codes can resolve accurately to one location like this though, and there are some "broken" post codes out there. You can try it out on websites that have a post code look-up in the address entry section of a delivery form - generally you can just enter number and post code to uniquely identify an address.
posted by iivix at 3:12 AM on September 1, 2010
posted by iivix at 3:12 AM on September 1, 2010
The Post office is about to abandon the use of county names in addresses. However, bear in mind that other delivery services apart from the Post office might be delivering to you so more info for them is often better.
posted by TheRaven at 3:16 AM on September 1, 2010
posted by TheRaven at 3:16 AM on September 1, 2010
You can use the royal mail post code/address finder to find out, from a house number and post code, what the Royal Mail think your address is.
The rest (area, town, county) is redundant, as the postcode contains that information, but there's not really any reason not to put it on there.
It depends on how automated the sorting and delivery process is; if there's manual sorting involved, the humans might not have all the post codes memorised, for example, and common street names might be repeated in multiple towns near one city.
For example, "Number 1, AA1 1AA" is enough detail to get my full address from the royal mail postcode finder but the postman probably doesn't know the post code of every street - and if somewhere in the sorting process a pile of "AA1 1something" letters gets sorted manually, the sorters might not have the postcodes memorised either.
Of course, they won't toss your post in the bin - but it might take a bit longer to arrive.
That said, based on my experience with the royal mail address finder, most addresses are 3 or 4 lines long at most. Area and county names don't seem important.
posted by Mike1024 at 3:23 AM on September 1, 2010
The rest (area, town, county) is redundant, as the postcode contains that information, but there's not really any reason not to put it on there.
It depends on how automated the sorting and delivery process is; if there's manual sorting involved, the humans might not have all the post codes memorised, for example, and common street names might be repeated in multiple towns near one city.
For example, "Number 1, AA1 1AA" is enough detail to get my full address from the royal mail postcode finder but the postman probably doesn't know the post code of every street - and if somewhere in the sorting process a pile of "AA1 1something" letters gets sorted manually, the sorters might not have the postcodes memorised either.
Of course, they won't toss your post in the bin - but it might take a bit longer to arrive.
That said, based on my experience with the royal mail address finder, most addresses are 3 or 4 lines long at most. Area and county names don't seem important.
posted by Mike1024 at 3:23 AM on September 1, 2010
In my area post turns up whether it includes the "area of city" or not - but if you list the wrong area of the city, someone crosses it out and writes the correct one in marker pen next to it. So presumably someone in the delivery process reads it and thinks it needs correcting.
posted by Mike1024 at 3:27 AM on September 1, 2010
posted by Mike1024 at 3:27 AM on September 1, 2010
Since 1996, the Post Office has been ignoring the county in addresses. Instead, they rely on the first section of the postcode, which is read by OCR for automated sorting of letters.
From Wikipedia:
The Royal Mail ceased to use postal counties as a means of sorting mail following the modernisation of their optical character recognition equipment in 1996. Instead, using postcode defined circulation, the outward code (first half) of the postcode is used to differentiate between like-sounding post towns. In 2000 the postal county data was removed from the Postcode Address File database and was added to the Alias File, which is used to cleanse data of local, colloquial and "postally-not-required" details that have been added to addresses. According to Royal Mail policy the field is not updated and where new post towns are created they will not be assigned to a former postal county. In guidance to customers it is required that the correct post town and postcode must be included in addresses and a county is not required.[19] As part of a "flexible addressing policy" customers can add a county, which will be ignored in the sorting process.
The Royal Mail describe their preferred address format here:
Addressee's Name
Number + Street Name
Locality, if required
POST TOWN (in capitals)
POSTCODE
Generally, each UK postcode refers to a unique street, section of a very long street, or building (e.g. large residential tower blocks). So in principle you should be able to send a letter to e.g.:
No. 19
CV4 7AL
I've done this a couple of times to different cities just to see whether it worked, and the letters got through as normal.
posted by metaBugs at 3:29 AM on September 1, 2010
From Wikipedia:
The Royal Mail ceased to use postal counties as a means of sorting mail following the modernisation of their optical character recognition equipment in 1996. Instead, using postcode defined circulation, the outward code (first half) of the postcode is used to differentiate between like-sounding post towns. In 2000 the postal county data was removed from the Postcode Address File database and was added to the Alias File, which is used to cleanse data of local, colloquial and "postally-not-required" details that have been added to addresses. According to Royal Mail policy the field is not updated and where new post towns are created they will not be assigned to a former postal county. In guidance to customers it is required that the correct post town and postcode must be included in addresses and a county is not required.[19] As part of a "flexible addressing policy" customers can add a county, which will be ignored in the sorting process.
The Royal Mail describe their preferred address format here:
Addressee's Name
Number + Street Name
Locality, if required
POST TOWN (in capitals)
POSTCODE
Generally, each UK postcode refers to a unique street, section of a very long street, or building (e.g. large residential tower blocks). So in principle you should be able to send a letter to e.g.:
CV4 7AL
I've done this a couple of times to different cities just to see whether it worked, and the letters got through as normal.
posted by metaBugs at 3:29 AM on September 1, 2010
In this, I think of the poor, put-upon postie. Surely it makes their job easier if you write as clear and full an address as possible? I imagine the mail is pre-sorted before it goes into their bags or trolleys but at the end of the day your mail is pushed through your door by a human being reading instructions. Why not make it as easy for them as possible - not to mention reduce the chance of last-minute human error?
posted by Decani at 4:24 AM on September 1, 2010
posted by Decani at 4:24 AM on September 1, 2010
Not all house number / postcode combos are unique.
I used to live at 1, The Mews, Example Street, Postcode. "The Mews" was a row of five houses inserted in a gap in between 1 Example Street and 2 Example Street.
1, The Mews and 1 Example Street had the same house number and the same postcode.
The Post Office refused to alter the postcodes in any way and lots of mail regularly went to the wrong house, the gas company billed the wrong address, etc etc ad nauseum.
posted by emilyw at 6:45 AM on September 1, 2010
I used to live at 1, The Mews, Example Street, Postcode. "The Mews" was a row of five houses inserted in a gap in between 1 Example Street and 2 Example Street.
1, The Mews and 1 Example Street had the same house number and the same postcode.
The Post Office refused to alter the postcodes in any way and lots of mail regularly went to the wrong house, the gas company billed the wrong address, etc etc ad nauseum.
posted by emilyw at 6:45 AM on September 1, 2010
I once received a letter in England sent using only my name and postcode.
County names are actually deprecated and the Royal Mail wants you to not use them. I found it incredibly odd when people insisted that their address included counties that no longer even existed in an administrative sense. There is no chance they are necessary, because the post town and postcode will identify the area uniquely to automated sorting equipment. I'd still include everything else, though, as it might help a person figure things out, especially if something is illegible or someone makes a mistake somewhere. A locality phrase is much more robust than a postcode.
posted by grouse at 7:28 AM on September 1, 2010
County names are actually deprecated and the Royal Mail wants you to not use them. I found it incredibly odd when people insisted that their address included counties that no longer even existed in an administrative sense. There is no chance they are necessary, because the post town and postcode will identify the area uniquely to automated sorting equipment. I'd still include everything else, though, as it might help a person figure things out, especially if something is illegible or someone makes a mistake somewhere. A locality phrase is much more robust than a postcode.
posted by grouse at 7:28 AM on September 1, 2010
I put my area name on my London address but when living elsewhere I would just put town and county. I think, as minimum, you would need number, street name, city/town and postcode.
posted by mippy at 7:31 AM on September 1, 2010
posted by mippy at 7:31 AM on September 1, 2010
found it incredibly odd when people insisted that their address included counties that no longer even existed in an administrative sense.
This is the case in the letters page of the right-wing press, oddly. Lots of Rutland and Stirlingshire.
posted by mippy at 7:34 AM on September 1, 2010
This is the case in the letters page of the right-wing press, oddly. Lots of Rutland and Stirlingshire.
posted by mippy at 7:34 AM on September 1, 2010
My address, when living in halls in a major city, was
BuildingNumber/Flatnumber Hallsname
City
Postcode.
If I'd been in the main collection of halls, rather than a little close that was basically its own street, I'd have added another line in there to say Whichever University Halls, or Halls Road or something.
The most complicated thing involved with addresses in that city was the number of addresses in the format NumberFNumber, Number Streetname (e.g. 3F2, 123 Example St).
posted by Lebannen at 9:10 AM on September 1, 2010
BuildingNumber/Flatnumber Hallsname
City
Postcode.
If I'd been in the main collection of halls, rather than a little close that was basically its own street, I'd have added another line in there to say Whichever University Halls, or Halls Road or something.
The most complicated thing involved with addresses in that city was the number of addresses in the format NumberFNumber, Number Streetname (e.g. 3F2, 123 Example St).
posted by Lebannen at 9:10 AM on September 1, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by fire&wings at 3:02 AM on September 1, 2010