[Talk-GB] Postcodes

[ndrw6]

On 09/11/2018 19:49, Chris Hill wrote:
> I maintain a GB postcode overlay, based on the Codepoint Open 
> datasets. This was last updated using the August 2018 data. I expect 
> another update shortly. You can see postcodes on a map I provide or 
> use the overlay tiles in your favourite editor. More details can be 
> found here:

This is a fantastic resource, thank you for making and maintaining it. 
I've been using it for a couple of weeks and almost enjoyed tagging 
postcodes! Sadly, osm.org doesn't seem to make use of addr:postcode tags 
and maps.me is painfully slow when searching for them. But that's a bit 
of a chicken and egg problem, I guess, as there are still not many 
postcodes in the database.

I found it useful to highlight buildings and nodes tagged with 
addr:postcode. Otherwise it is very easy to lose track of what building 
have already been tagged. Below is a JOSM map paint style that does that 
and displays the existing postcodes:

https://pastebin.com/raw/RxKNky3E


> If you find any problems please let me know.

Not really problems but:

- Overlapping labels can be difficult to read. Perhaps the script could 
detect co-located postcodes and concatenate them.

- After the update some postcodes point to different buildings (likely 
centroids have changed and snapping function produces a different 
result). That could be a feature. It would be good to have a 
simultaneous access to all versions of tiles.

> I also maintain a postcode layer based on the Office of National 
> Statistics OGL postcode data (ONSPD). There is currently a problem 
> with the way the tiles are generated, which I'm addressing. I believe 
> Codepoint Open and ONSPD are pretty much identical with the current 
> postcodes, but there is much more historical data in the ONSPD data.

It would be great to have e.g. a JOSM plugin combining address 
information from open sources and making it easy (ideally with a single 
click) to annotate postcodes and/or street names.

Many thanks,

ndrw6