Mailsort
From Free net encyclopedia
Mailsort is a five-digit address-coding scheme used by the Royal Mail (the UK's postal service) and its business customers for the automatic direction of mail. Mail users who can present mail sorted by Mailsort code and in quantities of 4,000 upwards receive a discounted postal rate.
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Use
Mailsort is not widely known to the British public and the code is not written as part of the address, rather it appears elsewhere on the envelope or label. Although the majority of people in the UK use the postcode, the mailsort code is now used for automated sorting. The postcode failed in its objective, partly because its inflexibility led to numerous initial two-letter codes being directed to a single main sorting office, and this led to some addresses having non-obvious characters. Furthermore, errors were introduced by the easy confusion by autotype reading of some characters of often hand-written addresses.
Structure
The first three digits, the Residue Selection Code, corresponds to an area which can vary in size from one postal district to several postal areas, although most codes correspond exactly to one postal area. For example, code 104 corresponds to the KA and ML postal areas, 172 corresponds to LS postal area, 244 corresponds to the SW1 postal district and 269 corresponds to the BN postal area and the RH14 postal district. The last two digits, called the Direct Selection code correspond to one or more postal districts.
Residue selection codes
| Residue | Location | Postal areas |
|---|---|---|
| 101-103 | Northern Ireland | BT |
| 104-109 | Scotland | KA, ML, G, PA, HS, IV, KW |
| 110-122 | Scotland | AB, ZE, DD, PH, FK, KY, EH, TD |
| 123-130 | North West England | BL, WN, M, OL, FY, PR, BB, LA, DG, CA |
| 131-136 | not used | |
| 137-141 | North West England | SK, L, CH, LL, CW, WA |
| 142 | Isle of Man | IM |
| 143-145 | North East England | NE, SR, TS, DH, DL |
| 146-172 | Yorkshire | YO, HU, DN, HG, LS |
| 173-178 | Yorkshire | WF, BD, HX, HD, S |
| 179-185 | Midlands | DE, LE, CV, NN, LU, MK, B |
| 186-189 | East Anglia | NR, CB, IP, PE |
| 190-191 | Channel Islands | JE, GY |
| 192-199 | Midlands | DY, WS, WV, ST, LD, SY, TF, NG, OX |
| 200-227 | not used | |
| 228-231 | London and South East | HP, AL, EN, WD, SG, IG, RM |
| 232-238 | London and South East | SS, CO, CM, DA, ME, TN, CT |
| 239-265 | London and South East | E, N, NW, SE, SW, EC, WC, W, SL, HA, UB |
| 266-295 | London and South East | BR, CR, SM, RH, BN, TW, KT, GU, PO |
| 296-315 | South West England | GL, SN, BA, BS, TA, EX, TQ |
| 316-324 | South West England | SO, SP, RG, BH, DT, WR, HR |
| 325-350 | Cornwall and South Wales | PL, TR, NP, CF, SA |