[Talk-GB] OSM Postcode Checking

[Robert Whittaker (OSM lists)]

Some of you may recall that I've previously advertised a tool that
checks addr:postcode tags in OSM UK against the official Code-Point
Open data. There are two reports:

* http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/postcodes/osm-errors.html is updated
daily and flags up OSM postcode values that  don't exist in Code-Point
Open

* http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/postcodes/location-errors.cgi is
updated roughly weekly, and flags up OSM objects with postcodes whose
location differs significantly from the postcode centroid in
Code-Point Open.

I've just discovered a bug in the first report, that meant many
non-existent units were not being reported. (I'd forgotten to clear
the cache of valid units between each sector). Having fixed this,
there are now rather a lot of new errors (over 1500) there that could
do with manual checking. Presumably some will be typos by mappers,
others will be errors in sources, some will be old now-disused
postcodes, and some may be new codes that haven't made it into
Code-Point Open yet.

If anyone fancies helping out, then please have a look at some of the
flagged postcodes at
http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/postcodes/osm-errors.html#unit and see
if the OSM data needs correcting. (Remember to only use acceptable OSM
sources for postcodes. Code-Point Open can be used, but address
look-up tools from Royal Mail and others cannot.)

Robert.

-- 
Robert Whittaker