The Politics of Codes

In the UK, the Royal Mail is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the postcode [BBC News, 30 December 2008]. As far as the Royal Mail is concerned, the sole purpose of the postcode is to speed the sorting of letters and parcels.

However, the postcode is reused by other organizations for many other purposes.

• Postcode used in pension sums
• Postcode "lottery" - home insurance, GP services, social care, cancer treatment, ...
  

For this reason, some residential communities have appealed to the Royal Mail to have their postcode changed.

• Residents of Windsor don't like having a Slough postcode [January 2003].
• Residents of Ilford want to have a London postcode, which they feel will enhance their property values [April 2005].
• A village near Coventry wishes to have a rural postcode rather than be classified as a suburb of Coventry [July 2008].

But the Royal Mail is unsympathetic to all such requests. After all, it's not our problem if other people choose to repurpose our codes, is it?