Postcode Database [UK]

[Danial]

Hi,
I design business application, and many clients have requested the feature where they can qery through Postcode (United Kingdom) which will return the correspending address, e.g Street Name, Town, City etc.

I done some research and it seems like Roayl Mail sells the database, unfortunately its very expensive, to purchase the whole db and pay license per year and also for each machine.

I was wondering if anyone know of any cheaper alternative. Or has any one implemented such feature.

Thanks for your help.

Danial

[Matt_T_hat]

(I did this for my final year)

I designed something that might help. a four table jobbie that hold the four parts of the database A -< B -< C -< D this allows one to "know" the distance of one post code from another. The only problem is that the selection of code gets a bit random toward the end.

A: Main office CT for example is Canterbury
B: Sub Office (number) 9 is the Broadstairs / Margate area

C: Delivery area
D: Route (walk) up to 80 addresses in any given road.

This information is available on the RMs website.

The big difficulty is getting the data for the data base as you are finding out.

You companies must have data that they value very much. Get that address book or whatever it is from the company add some more tables E & F Road Name & Number

Now once you have completed your app it can make a good guess as to the full address just from postcode, road name and number. As long as there is an A and B that match you can be curtain of having the rest of the address AND as the database increases in size you should be able to be more curtain.

Of course the coding or algorithm for this is another story and is going to involve lots of IFs or very clever SQL.

Now this is where it starts to get good: Try and get a clause whereby you keep / hold a backup of / store for research their addresses.

If you can note the difference between Business and private addresses. The data protection act doesn't allow that kind of transfer and you could only be allowed to keep the full address and post code with out knowing the name of the person who lives there (Useless for marketing). You may however know the full details of any business as the data protection act does not cover them.

Now this is where it gets even better: we are both doing the same thing! However I need the business data for my projects.

I am sure that we can find a way to swap data of mutual interest.

And here's were it gets very nice indeed: You should continue to store these address postcode combo's!

With each job you will find new batches of data and with time increase the chances of identifying bad data. Each customer you do gets a better POSTCODE ENGINE from you as the approximation data increases. Remember the trick that you only need parts A & B with street name and number to get the town and county C & D only confirm the address.

Eventually you will have a really good database that you can start selling!



You can tell that I have some interest in your success but wish you the best of luck with it all as well.

[Danial]

Matt, thank you for your very descriptive reply. I am glad at least some one replied.

My concern is getting the row data, using them and writing algorithm should not be a problem at all. I have some data the ones that identifies the first part e.g given W10, i can tell the town for that post code. I need to know the Address only, i do not require the Name of the person or Business name so no Data Protection issue here.

I wouldnt mind paying for the DB if it was one time payment, but RM charges One Time + Per Year Fee * Machine you are using. So currently its ont economically viable for me to purchase the DB from RM.


Any how, I will certainly let you know if i get any success.

Thank you for your reply.

[dj4uk]

Take a look at http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk - they do a pay-as -you-go service. I've used in in the past and it works well!

DJ

[georgebliss]

Hi,

I'm not positive about this, but I think a while back the company I was working for at the time bought a single copy of the database from a RM reseller, not RM themselves. There was a client-licence, but that was only to use their database client, and we wrote our own.

It was fairly expensive, but if you didn't need the yearly updates, it would just be a one-off payment.

George

Ps. If you don't have any further luck, drop me an email and I'll put you in touch with the person that dealt with the RM reseller.

[email protected]

[Danial]

Originally posted by georgebliss
Hi,

I'm not positive about this, but I think a while back the company I was working for at the time bought a single copy of the database from a RM reseller, not RM themselves. There was a client-licence, but that was only to use their database client, and we wrote our own.

It was fairly expensive, but if you didn't need the yearly updates, it would just be a one-off payment.

George

Ps. If you don't have any further luck, drop me an email and I'll put you in touch with the person that dealt with the RM reseller.

[email protected]

George, thank you for your reply. I have sent you an email, not sure if you have recieved it. I havent had too much luck finding a economical solution. I would prefer to get One Time payment solution rather then paying Yearly/Monthly. I would be grateful if you could pass me the details of the Reseller you mentioned.

Thank you very much.

Danial