[Talk-GB] Made-up motorway junction names

[SK53]

I've been passing through that junction as a driver for 40 years. Never
once have I heard it called the "Heath Interchange", similarly, for the
"Whetstone Interchange" and "Kirkby Muxloe Interchange" neither of which
are intuitive names (if I wanted to clarify which junction to someone I'd
use something like Leicester Forest or Aylestone for the former, and
A46/Fosse Way for the latter). Trigpoint will know better what it is known
as locally.

Obviously, during planning & construction, and possibly subsequently in
internal documentation, these places probably had names rather than the
familiar junction numbers. SABRE enthusiasts have from time-to-time added
them as names on OSM. As there is little to no evidence on-the-ground I
don't think they belong in the name tag, particularly as this is used by
data consumers including satnavs.

Quite why the postal authorities have chosen to use a name which is not
well-known locally (Andy was local to this junction for perhaps 30 years
too) when the road name & postcode alone should locate these properties I
don't know. Either way, I think junction names should only be in the name
tag when these are clearly signed: we have suitable other tags for variants
loc_name, official_name etc. I suspect that "Heath Interchange" may need to
be a locality to support the address (if we have it available as an open
source), but various authoritative sources have been known
<http://sk53-osm.blogspot.com/2011/02/mysterious-case-of-kenyon-road.html>
to perpetuate names not even in local usage (small coda to the link: I've
found one person who remembers this as Kenyon Road, now in his mid-70s and
went to school with children of Mr Kenyon, but it undoubtedly ceased having
that designation betore 1966, and it was never a public road; it now does
not exist).

Jerry

On Mon, 2 Jan 2023 at 13:53, Steve Doerr <doerr.stephen at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 02/01/2023 12:38, Andy Townsend wrote:
> > In this example the "made-up name" applied to the roads was "Heath
> > Interchange",
>
> However, Heath *Intersection* does appear in the official postal
> addresses for postcode S44 5SL.
>
> --
> Steve
>
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