The Underscore Archives

On 06/07/07, Mark Chitty <mark.chitty at gmail.com> wrote:
> Good afternoon _,
>
> One for the hivemind regarding postcode databases!
>
> A client of mine may be looking to offer a hotel location service which, in
> an ideal world would take a postcode and a database of hotels and return the
> hotels that are 'n' miles away.
>
> As I understand it the accurate (expensive) way of doing this is to use the
> Royal Mail 'PAF' database (named after the noise off all those wads of
> banknotes hitting their doormat apparently).
>
> Given that we would only be looking for a minimum resolution of 5 miles are
> there any cheaper alternatives, hacks or work arounds. There are several DIY
> versions kicking around but nothing that seems to be updated/maintained
> recently.
>
> Any suggestions, links or thoughts?

This is stuff that's been paid for with taxpayers' money. It should be free.

http://www.freethepostcode.org/
http://www.openstreetmap.org/
http://www.opengeodata.org/
http://www.npemap.org.uk/data/

Tim