VoteUK is no more. In order to precisely show you where your electoral registration office was, I needed to take its postcode and covert it to latitude and longitude. That's the service Ernest Marples provided.
A few days ago, the Post Office - in their infinite wisdom - set their legal dogs on those running Ernest Marples.
The Post Office charges for the file that they generated which converts post codes to location. It can cost anywhere from £1,000 to £4,000 per year to get accurate data. That's a price that I can't afford - neither can many non-profits, startups or innovators.
The Guardian has shown that there is more economic benefit to the UK by setting this data free.
So, what can be done about it?
- Sign the petition to the Prime Minister
- Write a blog post, send a tweet, and tell your friends what’s happening!
- Call, email or fax your MP
The Royal Mail is in its death-throes. It is vital that data created and supported by public money is returned to the public before it is sold off to the highest bidder... only to be sold back to us.
2 thoughts on “Free Our Postcodes”
Just a quick note... it's the Royal Mail doing this, rather than the Post Office (though they are a wholly owned subsidiary, they do other stuff). Small but important distinction 🙂
Richard
All good Terence, though I disagree with the petition - it only asks for postcodes to be made available for free to non-profits and charities - this doesn't go fa enough - surely to reap the benefits it should be free for all classes of users.
What links here from around this blog?