Charlbury Address and Postcode Idiocy!

Fri 1 Jul 2022, 08:30

The Royal Mail postcode database lists a typical Charlbury addresses (in this case mine) as:

10 Park St, Charlbury, Chipping Norton, OX7 3PS

In Charlie M's case, it was the medical SUPPLIER, not Royal Mail, who fouled up - because - unlike anyone who knows how rural England works - the supplier didn't understand how far many rural communities are from their post town. Possibly because the supplier relied on Daily Mail articles about the "Chipping Norton Set" for its information about the people it was delivering to.

Rather than slagging off the people who work for an organisation that's kept the country going for the past 400 years, mightn't the poster have checked on the Royal Mail website (https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode) for what the database actually holds? 

Thu 30 Jun 2022, 16:58

There are around 40 potential elements to an address but many will be combined into one field. Technically all the post office needs is one of the first elements (house number, house name, appt number etc) and one of the last - the post code

Thu 30 Jun 2022, 16:26

The problem is slightly more nuanced than the database not having Charlbury - it comes down to how individual websites choose to implement their address lookups - there are certain fields you have to include (e.g. the postal town, which in this case would be Chipping Norton) and then Charlbury might be an 'address line 2' or an 'address line 3' field, which would be an optional field. Most websites will allow you to edit the address once you have selected it from the automatic look up - I usually change the postal town to Charlbury to avoid any confusion, even though it's not technically correct.

I understand it can be really annoying!

Thu 30 Jun 2022, 12:37

It never ceases to amaze me how, after so long woth postcodes, many address databases still list Charlbury addresses without the word Charlbury in them!

I have just had an NHS delivery by someone who went to Chipping Norton first, before realising that the delivery address is in Charlbury! I checked my NHS records, and they actually list my address as NN XXXX Street, Chipping Norton, OX7 XXX. No mention of Charlbury!!

How do we get this changed? It is plain RIDICULOUS! It is my understanding that the NHS (and others) use a standard "address database" (presumably generated by the Post Office, or whatever they call themselves these days). They need to sort themselves out!