[Talk-GB] UK Postcodes - Potential data source

[Shaun McDonald]

Hi Rob,

Postcodes are a bit more complicated. Postcodes are a series of points, not a single point, as based on CodePoint data. I would not like to see a raw import of the CodePoint Open data as it is just the centroids of the postcodes, instead the postcodes need to be attached to specific addresses, which is more work, though more accurate and what is needed by the geocoders.

There are websites out there such as CycleStreets that are successfully using the CodePoint Open data for geocoding in addition to other OSM data.

Shaun

On 27 Aug 2012, at 23:18, Rob Nickerson <rob.j.nickerson at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> Hi All,
> 
> Please correct me if I am wrong, but to the best of my understanding we are still struggling to find a good source of postcode data under an open licence. From what I understand the CodePoint data set is currently seen as not available for use in OSM.
> 
> That is where this data set available under the OGL licence may help: http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/public/information/public-data/price-paid-data
> 
> It's not perfect as it does not provide lat/lon co-ordinates, but it does include full addresses for residential properties sold within each month. This means that it gives us a link between address (something we can survey) and postcode (which we can't easily survey). It also states which properties are new (i.e. new builds, new addresses). Any thoughts?
> 
> If this is a useful source I was thinking a simple database where we can look up an address and find a postcode for adding to OSM. Going one step further we could try to find automatic matches between OSM addresses and this dataset and therefore generate a list of postcodes that could be suitable for import. I guess for someone with experience this would be quite an do-able hack?
> 
> Regards,
> Rob
> 
> 
> 
> 
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