13 replies to this topic

[Giasen]

Yes, I have looked several places already and I either can't login to the UK sites providing the data or the other sites seem to be charging 495 pounds! That may include some demographic data I'm not interested in. Just looking for the boundaries. Any help would be appreciated.

[gregsd]

Yes, I have looked several places already and I either can't login to the UK sites providing the data or the other sites seem to be charging 495 pounds! That may include some demographic data I'm not interested in. Just looking for the boundaries. Any help would be appreciated.

In the UK the Post Office controls and sells postcode data, so you may well end-up having to pay if you want the latest with full coverage. You may be able to find free postcode centroid data on the Internet to download, but it won't be up to date or complete. You could also have a look at 'Free the Postcode' for a public domain list.

HTH

Greg.

[Giasen]

Well I have good news and bad news. The good news is I managed to get my hands on a shapefile for UK postcode 'sectors', which is what I want. The bad news is that the coordinate system is 'undefined'. I've tried OSGB36 and UTM 30 N and WGS84 and a bunch of other ones and none of them line up right yet. Not sure what it is but if anybody has a clue, let me know. Thanks in advance.

[Giasen]

Nevermind! It's the British National Grid!

[bonzi]

Well I have good news and bad news. The good news is I managed to get my hands on a shapefile for UK postcode 'sectors', which is what I want. The bad news is that the coordinate system is 'undefined'. I've tried OSGB36 and UTM 30 N and WGS84 and a bunch of other ones and none of them line up right yet. Not sure what it is but if anybody has a clue, let me know. Thanks in advance.

where did you find this? i need exactly the same :-)

many thanks !!

[ojhilt]

Well I have good news and bad news. The good news is I managed to get my hands on a shapefile for UK postcode 'sectors', which is what I want. The bad news is that the coordinate system is 'undefined'. I've tried OSGB36 and UTM 30 N and WGS84 and a bunch of other ones and none of them line up right yet. Not sure what it is but if anybody has a clue, let me know. Thanks in advance.

where did you find this? i need exactly the same :-)

many thanks !!

Ditto! Please update with details, I hate it when people ask questions then come back to say 'solved it!' then dissappear with no hint as to the answer

[gregsd]

Well I have good news and bad news. The good news is I managed to get my hands on a shapefile for UK postcode 'sectors', which is what I want. The bad news is that the coordinate system is 'undefined'. I've tried OSGB36 and UTM 30 N and WGS84 and a bunch of other ones and none of them line up right yet. Not sure what it is but if anybody has a clue, let me know. Thanks in advance.

where did you find this? i need exactly the same :-)

many thanks !!

Ditto! Please update with details, I hate it when people ask questions then come back to say 'solved it!' then dissappear with no hint as to the answer

Do you want to pay for the data or are you looking for a 'free' version?

[silas]

I have a csv file in this format ...

postcode latitude longitude
AB10 1GY 57.1476 -2.0975
AB10 1NP 57.1467 -2.1074
AB10 1RQ 57.1467 -2.1107
AB10 1TT 57.1431 -2.114
AB10 6AA 57.135 -2.1156
AB10 6DE 57.1377 -2.1173
AB10 6HX 57.1332 -2.1222
AB10 6NZ 57.1323 -2.1305
AB10 6QX 57.1395 -2.1206
AB10 6SZ 57.1413 -2.114
AB10 7AE 57.1215 -2.137
AB10 7DR 57.1215 -2.1337
AB10 7GA 57.1242 -2.1222
AB10 7JR 57.1269 -2.1222
AB10 7NU 57.1251 -2.1371
AB11 5AP 57.1467 -2.0909
AB11 5DL 57.1458 -2.0793
AB11 5HW 57.1476 -2.0859
AB11 5RF 57.1377 -2.0974
AB11 6DE 57.1413 -2.1074
AB11 6FB 57.144 -2.1057
AB11 6JD 57.1395 -2.1024
AB11 6NY 57.1458 -2.1008
AB11 6UN 57.1368 -2.109
AB11 6YW 57.1422 -2.1074
AB11 7UF 57.1341 -2.1007
AB11 8DS 57.1297 -2.0892

Its got either 1.6 or 1.9 million rows ... & is about 40mb uncompressed ...

I got it 18 months ago from a pal who uses it at work ... I think it was bang up to date at that point.

It cost me the price of a few beers ... & I'll pass it on for the same amount.

Silas

s i l a s @ s i l a s . c o . u k

[Jimbo]

I think this is an issue that has been bought up before, for quite some time in Canada GIS data was not for free where in the US it is. It's only been in recent times that topographic data has been freed. However in Europe postal codes, & topographic data are very expensive. And unless the cartographer can find good replacement data the freelancer has to dish out a lot of money just to buy what is needed & thus the payment for the data is consequently transferred back to the client as an expensive additional cost on the final invoice. And what this means for the cartographer is that the same client that may not return additional projects because of the high cost of the project.

So in Europe I would demonstrate that you pay high enough taxes already so why pay for it a second time? Time to free your data.

[Peeks]

+1 for any info on getting uk postcodes, please

[Nick H]

So in Europe I would demonstrate that you pay high enough taxes already so why pay for it a second time? Time to free your data.

Yes, it is about time our data was freed. There is "free our data" campaign under way already here in the UK, that has the Ordnance Survey as one of its targets. In response the OS have started to make limited access to their small-scale raster mapping available but are still fiercely protective of their vector mapping.

By the way, in the last few days a new mapping service has started up here, see:

http://www.theukmap.co.uk/

Regards, N.

[Giasen]

Sorry for the delay in responding. I have had to search many old hard drives for the UK Postcode data I acquired in 2008. When I found it, it had become corrupted. So I was able to re-create the shapefile by importing the kml into ArcMap.

I was wondering if anybody could find out why there are some dissolve problems with it. Somebody wanted me to create a more generalized version but the dissolve function does not appear to be working properly.

I have five areas for the S9 postcode sector:

S9 1
S9 2
S9 3
S9 4
S9 5

Tried to dissolve them into just S9, but unsuccessfully at this time.

[frax]

do you have the "S9" string in a separate field (from the 1-5) numbers? Also - could there be bad topology involved (e.g. overlapping polygons)

[gregsd]

Sorry for the delay in responding. I have had to search many old hard drives for the UK Postcode data I acquired in 2008. When I found it, it had become corrupted. So I was able to re-create the shapefile by importing the kml into ArcMap.

I was wondering if anybody could find out why there are some dissolve problems with it. Somebody wanted me to create a more generalized version but the dissolve function does not appear to be working properly.

I have five areas for the S9 postcode sector:

S9 1
S9 2
S9 3
S9 4
S9 5

Tried to dissolve them into just S9, but unsuccessfully at this time.

Things have moved on since your last post! Postcode point data (Code-Point Open)is now freely available to download under the OS Open Data initiative. You could use this point data to create polygons, at least it would be more up to date than your 2008 data!