Why do we continue to pay for open location data?


Two men are confused by a paper map

I don't understand how our Government works. I understand that tough decisions often need to be made - but sometimes those decisions are so utterly without reason that you have to wonder if politicians spend most of their days "painting their noses". The UK used to have a public sector postal service - the Royal Mail. Postmen need to know to where they were delivering mail. Postal Codes were created to help divide up the country into easily sortable destinations. And so, over time, a…

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Free Our Postcodes


A red UK post box.

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…

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