Talk:Postal counties of the United Kingdom

Consultation regarding code of practice

The Royal Mail's code of practice is up for renewal. One of the points raised in the consultation is the acceptance that former postal county data is still frequently used in mailers. According to [1] the Royal Mail wants feedback on the idea of switching to a single, updated county field (instead of the current three). Although their preference is for "none". MRSC (talk) 22:51, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

An example of a company that is sold the data is yell.com, who lazily organise their listings by former postal county: [2] [3] [4] MRSC (talk) 23:24, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

That's interesting. I became aware of it due to some recent activity over at the Humberside article.Lozleader (talk) 23:02, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

It will definitely be interesting to see how the field is populated and with what data. If the Rutland amendment is anything to go by it will be done by postcode sector rather than post town. MRSC (talk) 13:25, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Hard to work out what stage this is at, but the address management unit at Royal Mail presented Postcomm/PAF Board with five options [5] and the PAF board appear to have advised Royal Mail to cease to provide any county alias data from 2013. [6] Not sure if this is the final decision, as that will probably come from Postcomm. MRSC (talk) 13:11, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Sources

• BBC: Royal Mail set to delete counties from addresses
• Daily Mail: Royal Mail calls time on counties as it decides postcodes are enough for letters and parcels
• Mirror: 'Counties' may be dropped from post
• Press Association: 'Counties' may be dropped from post
• Telegraph: Counties to be axed from postal addresses

These all appear to come from the same source. MRSC (talk) 05:49, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I guess Royal Mail will put a news release online sooner or later.

I've just noticed the following statement from Royal Mail to the PAF Advisory Board:

"If provision by Royal Mail were to cease, County information would still be accessible through other sources, i.e. ONS, Association of British Counties, Wikipedia, and from Solutions Providers and existing software applications."

— PAF(09)52 "Use of counties in addressing", note by the Royal Mail Address Management Unit dated 21 December 2009, presented to Postcode Address File Advisory Board 5 February 2010.

So, bizarrely, the county Alias list in the Royal Mail PAF will apparently no longer be available to disambiguate an unpostcoded address that has a county but a non-unique post town (Alford, Ashford, Bangor, Gillingham, Newcastle, Newport, Richmond, St. Ives, Talybont, Whitchurch). Presumably localities will continue to have an Alias file, so more obscure localities will be better supported than major towns.

And Wikipedia is officially suggested as a new source. I think the only article to specify the former postal county for each post town is "List of postcode districts in the United Kingdom". So a tertiary source becomes, in a sense, an official primary resource.

— Richardguk (talk) 09:27, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

If I were feeling cynical I would question the timing of this release from Royal Mail. The "vanity" quote in particular is likely to stir up a particular response. Perhaps RM is happy with the status quo. 1) They don't have to keep the data current and 2) They get to sell it on. MRSC (talk) 10:13, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Origins

Does anyone know when the expression "postal county" was first used? I can find nothing in the OED, although the first citation of "post town" is from 1635. Kelly's Directories from the mid 19th century simply refer to "counties". I suspect that the expression came into use after 1888 when administrative counties began to differ from geographic counties, but it would be good to have confirmation.--Mhockey (talk) 18:35, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

It was probably first used in the USA, over here it is a neologism that is being used retrospectively. The usage was purely the word county which is now disambiguated. [7] the news archives give earlier mentions but it could well be for a different usage. The earliest usage as given here in the archives is as late as 2002 in the Independent but it is a dead link. as the others. The need for the term didn't exist before 1965 so even assuming earlier usage than 2002 it won't predate this in the UK.Tetron76 (talk) 15:29, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Geographic Counties

Sorry, but Geographic counties have never changed their boundaries - not within the last 100 years or so, anyway. The butchering changes made in 1974 created ceremonial 'counties' and administrative areas with similar names. Geographic county should either be used to refer to the original, historical counties or the term ceremonial county should be used for clarification. Lenzar (talk) 11:38, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I take your point but most people who say 'Geographic' counties mean the latest ones. Traditional/historic is/are the term(s) for the old ones. 82.45.172.71 (talk) 11:28, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Daft policy?

I just stumbled across this article while trying to solve a crossword clue. I must admit, as a reasonably well-educated Englishman, who reads at least one newspaper every day, I was unaware that the Royal Mail was proposing to abandon (or ignore?) county addresses and rely entirely on postcodes. If this is indeed the policy, it strikes me as impractical if not plain daft. The reason is simple: it is relatively easy to remember county names, but very difficult to remember dozens of postcodes which often bear little relation to the town or city concerned. I can just about remember my own postcode, but I can't remember my sister's, and I either have to look it up or just use the city name (which fortunately happens to be a large city and therefore easy to identify). And if someone wants to send a letter to Bromley or Richmond in outer London, I am sure for many people it will be 'Bromley, Kent' and 'Richmond, Surrey' until hell freezes over.109.149.27.17 (talk) 11:51, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

If I understand the policy correctly what they are abandoning is the supply of county names on the postal address file, with the result that businesses using it will no longer be using county names, and they won't be deluged with complaints about the use of outdated and/or unpopular county names appearing on addresses.

The requirement for counties was ditched back in the mid 1990s at a time when optical scanning was adopted but also when there was yet another reorganisation of counties that would have required further changes or confusion (and it wouldn't have been easy to explain succinctly that some counties had both the council and lord-lieutenancy abolished, others just the council). Most other countries don't have so many tiers on their mailing addresses, and in particular they don't tend to use the names of authorities that are routinely rearranged. They cope pretty well with that.

Finally the hell cooling system could be coming sooner than you think. I sell a bit online and have noticed both "London" and no county at all appearing quite a bit on outer London addresses (particularly, given your example, in Richmond) - and these are addresses supplied entirely by the customer with no drop down lists. I suspect they moved to the area after 1996 and use a form of the address that ultimately came from a modern database that didn't use the county. Since the mail gets there without problems they have no need to add extra information.

Plus there may be those who want to retain the old county but there are also those who actually do want "London" in the address, not least businesses in the likes of Ilford who are concerned they lose custom with postal addresses that imply they're further away than they actually are. Many in local government also at the very least want an end to addresses that imply people reside in different authorities - some of that's democratic accountability but some is down to practical problems. There are tales of water companies trying to fix leaks in Barnet going to liaise with Hertfordshire County Council and similar. Timrollpickering (talk) 00:10, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I run 2 businesses selling online, and the only people who provide addresses with incorrect "London" post town are ones with Eastern European names, so I would suspect they arrived in the past handful of years (not 1996 or even 2006), and simply believe they are living "in London". Everyone else provides the addresses correctly. It's usually obvious, because you'll get addresses where the postcode is clearly outside London, like "29 Acacia Avenue, London, CR0 1AA". It's not related to whether the address is in Greater London, either: I have had addresses in Chertsey and even Bury St. Edmunds followed by "London". Probably a third of them (those providing "London" addresses, but are outside the London postal district) then go on to claim they haven't received the item, so your statement that "mail gets there without problems" is nonsense. 91.84.83.190 (talk) 08:03, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Map

Great work adding the map. It throws up some interesting things like Warwickshire and Northumberland being divided. Might have to revise some of the descriptions. Tyne & Wear for example looks nothing like the actual county. MRSC (talk) 17:39, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Is county data still provided?

The article contains this bit in the lede:

In 2010 the regulator advised Royal Mail to cease supply of county data altogether,[4] and a timetable has been put in place for this to occur between 2013 and 2016.

2016 has come and gone -- can this sentence be updated to what the current status is, please? Either that the plan has been abandoned or carried out or that the timetable has been extended? -- pne (talk) 10:22, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Derbyshire abbreviation

Is "Derbys" actually an abbreviation of the county name? I work with an address system daily and in the times I've come across Derbyshire addresses the county name is always written in full whereas others are abbreviated. I also have an old Post Office book and the Royal Mail do not abbreviate Derbyshire, possibly because of confusion with the Derby post town (hence why Greater Manchester never came about). I've never come across it myself. Samuel J Walker (talk) 23:14, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Yorkshire

Surely Yorks is an extremely common abbreviation of Yorkshire - and hence N Yorks, S Yorks et simile? 82.45.172.71 (talk) 11:30, 19 November 2023 (UTC)