Post town
Encyclopedia
A post town is a required part of all postal addresses in the United Kingdom
, and a basic unit of the postal delivery system. Including the correct post town in the address increases the chances of a letter or parcel being delivered on time. Post towns are usually based upon the location of delivery offices. Currently their main function is to distinguish between locality or street names in addresses not including a postcode.
. Each post town usually corresponds to one or more postal districts
and each post town can cover an area including many individual towns and villages. Post towns rarely correspond to political boundaries and often group places that for all other purposes are quite separate.
In some places several post towns correspond to a single postal district with each post town covering one or more postcode sectors. There are anomalous examples where post towns and post codes do not coincide. For example, the post code sector EH14 5 is within three post towns: Juniper Green, Currie and Balerno, while Balerno is also within other sectors, such as EH14 7.
The system means that some addresses will have post towns that correspond to a place nearby, or cover a very large area. The use of post codes means that it is no longer necessary to include the former postal county in a postal address. Some post towns, known as special post towns, never required the inclusion of a postal county, either because the town was large or because it gave its name to the county.
Where this is a required part of the official postal address, Royal Mail terms this the "dependent locality". In a limited number of places a "double dependent locality" line is also required, preceding the dependent locality line.
Locality information other than the post town is not always part of the official postal address. In particular, within the London
post town, each postcode district name corresponds to a numbered postcode district and is therefore not required in the postal address if the postcode is present. For example, "Bethnal Green" is the name of the "E2" postcode district and is optional in the following address:
If no valid postcode is provided, or if the sorting machine rejects the letter, the use of optional locality or county information may assist manual sorting. Whether optional or part of the official postal address, locality details help to relate postal addresses to local placenames. In the absence of a full valid postcode, they may prevent ambiguity where there is more than one street with the same name covered by a post town or postcode district, or where post towns in different counties have the same name.
However, the Royal Mail discourages this usage because their optical character recognition
technology and Mailsort
lookup tables check for the post town at the beginning of a line if the postcode is missing, unreadable or incorrect. Additionally, "Near" and "Nr." can be confused with "North".
purposes, post towns in unpostcoded addresses can be pre-sorted only if the first 10 characters of the post town name correspond unambiguously to only one post town. In addition, the following post towns cover such large locations or have shared sorting routes that the town name is insufficient for determining the relevant delivery area without reference to the postcode or further locality information:
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and a basic unit of the postal delivery system. Including the correct post town in the address increases the chances of a letter or parcel being delivered on time. Post towns are usually based upon the location of delivery offices. Currently their main function is to distinguish between locality or street names in addresses not including a postcode.
Organisation
There are approximately 1,500 post towns which are organised at the convenience of the Royal MailRoyal Mail
Royal Mail is the government-owned postal service in the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide...
. Each post town usually corresponds to one or more postal districts
UK postcodes
The postal codes used in the United Kingdom are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were introduced by the Royal Mail over a 15-year period from 11th October 1959 to 1974...
and each post town can cover an area including many individual towns and villages. Post towns rarely correspond to political boundaries and often group places that for all other purposes are quite separate.
In some places several post towns correspond to a single postal district with each post town covering one or more postcode sectors. There are anomalous examples where post towns and post codes do not coincide. For example, the post code sector EH14 5 is within three post towns: Juniper Green, Currie and Balerno, while Balerno is also within other sectors, such as EH14 7.
Usage
The Royal Mail states that the post town must be included on all items and should be printed in capitals.- 1 Vallance Road
- LONDON
- E2 1AA
The system means that some addresses will have post towns that correspond to a place nearby, or cover a very large area. The use of post codes means that it is no longer necessary to include the former postal county in a postal address. Some post towns, known as special post towns, never required the inclusion of a postal county, either because the town was large or because it gave its name to the county.
Locality
In some places, additional locality information such as a village or suburb name is added above the post town giving a more specific location.Where this is a required part of the official postal address, Royal Mail terms this the "dependent locality". In a limited number of places a "double dependent locality" line is also required, preceding the dependent locality line.
Locality information other than the post town is not always part of the official postal address. In particular, within the London
London postal district
The London postal district is the area in England, currently of , to which mail addressed to the LONDON post town is delivered. The area was initially devised in 1856 and throughout its history has been subject to periodic reorganisation, contraction and division into increasingly smaller postal...
post town, each postcode district name corresponds to a numbered postcode district and is therefore not required in the postal address if the postcode is present. For example, "Bethnal Green" is the name of the "E2" postcode district and is optional in the following address:
- 1 Vallance Road
- Bethnal Green
- LONDON
- E2 1AA
If no valid postcode is provided, or if the sorting machine rejects the letter, the use of optional locality or county information may assist manual sorting. Whether optional or part of the official postal address, locality details help to relate postal addresses to local placenames. In the absence of a full valid postcode, they may prevent ambiguity where there is more than one street with the same name covered by a post town or postcode district, or where post towns in different counties have the same name.
Via
Traditionally, where a place such as a village was served by a post town entirely distinct from its location, the word "Via" or "Near" ("Nr.") was added before the post town. For example:- 1 High Street
- Sewardstone
- Via London
- E4 1AA
However, the Royal Mail discourages this usage because their optical character recognition
Optical character recognition
Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files, to computerize a record-keeping...
technology and Mailsort
Mailsort
Mailsort is a five-digit address-coding scheme used by the Royal Mail and its business customers for the automatic direction of mail...
lookup tables check for the post town at the beginning of a line if the postcode is missing, unreadable or incorrect. Additionally, "Near" and "Nr." can be confused with "North".
Ambiguous post town names
Post town names are unique within each former postal county and each postcode area. But across the UK, some post towns have identical or similar names. For MailsortMailsort
Mailsort is a five-digit address-coding scheme used by the Royal Mail and its business customers for the automatic direction of mail...
purposes, post towns in unpostcoded addresses can be pre-sorted only if the first 10 characters of the post town name correspond unambiguously to only one post town. In addition, the following post towns cover such large locations or have shared sorting routes that the town name is insufficient for determining the relevant delivery area without reference to the postcode or further locality information:
- BARNSLEY (S)
- BELFAST (BT)
- BIRMINGHAM (B)
- CARDIFF (CF)
- CHESTERFIELD (S)
- GLASGOW (G)
- LEEDS (LS)
- LONDON (E, EC, N, NW, SE, SW, W, WC)
- MANCHESTER (M)
- MANSFIELD (NG)
- NOTTINGHAM (NG)
- REDDITCH (B)
- SALFORD (M)
- SHEFFIELD (S)
External links
- List of UK post towns (as of 2007)