Post town
From Wikipedia, the free 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.[1] Including the correct post town in the address increases the chances of a letter or parcel being delivered on time.
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[edit] Organisation
There are approximately 1,500 post towns which are organised at the convenience of the Royal Mail. 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 within the district. In a limited number of localities a single sector may contain multiple post towns - a 'shared sector' - and in these cases only the last two digits of the postcode directly identify the post town.
Each post town is a subdivision of, and entirely contained within, a larger postal area; with the exception of the LONDON post town which instead occupies, and is divided into, several postal areas. Often a post town area corresponds with the area served by a single Royal Mail delivery office. However this is by no means a hard rule, as several small post towns can sometimes share a single delivery office, and conversely a large post town will usually be served by multiple delivery offices.
[edit] Usage
The Royal Mail states that the post town must be included on all items of mail immediately above the postcode and should be printed in capitals.
- 1 Valance 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.
[edit] Dependent locality
In some places in order to give further direction an additional 'dependent locality' is added above the post town giving a more specific location name. In most cases, including in the LONDON post town, this is not a required part of the address. However, if no postcode is used, or if the sorting machine rejects the letter, the use of locality will significantly speed up manual sorting.
- 1 Valance Road
- Bethnal Green
- LONDON
- E2 1AA
In a limited number of places a second 'double dependent locality' line is also required. Dependent localities are usually only in place where there is more than one road with the same name covered by a post town or postal district.
[edit] VIA
Traditionally, where a place was served by a post town entirely distinct from its location the text 'via' or 'near' was added before the post town. Such as:
- 1 High Street
- Sewardstone
- VIA LONDON
- E4 1AA
However, the Royal Mail discourage this usage[1] because of the risk of additional characters affecting the performance of their optical character recognition technology.
[edit] See also
- List of postcode areas in the United Kingdom — the main postal sorting centres
- List of post towns in the United Kingdom — the post towns grouped by postal areas
- List of postal districts in the United Kingdom — the post town for each district
- Postal counties of the United Kingdom
- UK postcodes
