Location of every post box that the Royal Mail Group operates
Dear Sir or Madam,
Please could you provide me with, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the location of every post box that the Royal Mail Group operates. Your reply would preferably be in the form of an electronic database export including a grid reference (such as Longitude/Latitude or Ordnance Survey).
Yours faithfully,
Tom Taylor
Dear Sir or Madam,
20 days has now passed since my initial request for the location of every post box that the Royal Mail Group operates, but I have received no reply. Under the Freedom of Information Act, you should have replied by now.
Yours sincerely,
Tom Taylor
Dear Mr Taylor
Thank you for your email received today. A response to your request was
sent yesterday 12 June 2008; I am forwarding a copy of the reply with this
email. It appears as though we had recorded a digit incorrectly in your
email address therefore, you did not receive this response. I apologise for
any inconvenience this may have caused.
Please let me know if you have any problems with this email or opening the
attachment.
Yours sincerely
Colin Young
Freedom of Information Manager
[Royal Mail Group request email]
Royal Mail is a trading name of Royal Mail Group Ltd. Registered in England
and Wales.
Registered number 4138203. Registered office at 148 Old Street, LONDON EC1V
9HQ
---------------------- Forwarded by Colin Young/e/POSTOFFICE on 13/06/2008
11:13:50
Dear Sir or Madam,
Thanks for your reply. Can you confirm that this is the most detailed and accurate information that you hold about your postboxes? I was specifically looking data with grid references or longitude and latitudes.
Yours sincerely,
Tom Taylor
Dear Mr Taylor
I can confirm that this the only listing we hold of every Royal Mail
postbox. We do not hold grid references for the location of boxes.
I am sorry that the information cannot be provided exactly as you have
requested. If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your FOI request
you do have a right to request an internal review, in which case please
write to the Head of Information Compliance, Royal Mail House, Company
Secretary's Office, 5th Floor, 148 Old Street, LONDON, EC1V 9HQ.
If, having requested an internal review by Royal Mail, you are still not
satisfied with our response you also have a right of appeal to the
Information Commissioner at:
Information Commissioner's Office,
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire,
SK9 5AF.
www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk
Yours sincerely
Colin Young
Freedom of Information Manager
[Royal Mail Group request email]
Royal Mail is a trading name of Royal Mail Group Ltd. Registered in England
and Wales.
Registered number 4138203. Registered office at 148 Old Street, LONDON EC1V
9HQ
Tom Taylor
<request-374-72354439@whatdoth To: FOI requests at Royal Mail Group <[Royal Mail Group request email]>
eyknow.com> cc:
Sent by: Tom Taylor Subject: Re: Freedom of Information request - Location of every post box that the Royal
<request-374-72354439@whatdoth Mail Group operates
eyknow.com>
17/06/2008 10:02
Dear Sir or Madam,
Thanks for your reply. Can you confirm that this is the most
detailed and accurate information that you hold about your
postboxes? I was specifically looking data with grid references or
longitude and latitudes.
Yours sincerely,
Tom Taylor
Edward Betts left an annotation ()
I've also converted this into a more usable format:
http://edwardbetts.com/postboxes/postbox...
Or as HTML: http://edwardbetts.com/postboxes/
Edward Betts left an annotation ()
See also my follow-up request about errors in the data:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/er...
Short summary: The field in the database isn't large enough to store Central London postcodes.
Abi Broom left an annotation ()
My attempt to get the last collection times for all the postboxes is here: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/la...
Matthew left an annotation ()
My application to locate these postboxes can be found here: http://www.dracos.co.uk/play/locating-po...
Peter Reynolds left an annotation ()
What's Colin Young's email address as I want to query a missing post box.
Peter Chamberlin left an annotation ()
I have taken the information from this request, that from the collections request, and additional collection times from openstreetmap.com and combined them into a single tab-delimited file with header. I have also converted the locations to proper-case format.
http://regionaltraffic.co.uk/postboxes.zip (1.6 MB)
Dear Sir or Madam,
In a previous FOI request the Royal Mail Group released a list of all of the postboxes that it collects from.
Can you confirm what license this information has been released as? Does the Royal Mail Group waive any copyright on this information?
Yours faithfully,
Tom Taylor
Dear Mr Taylor
Thank you for your request for information received on 06/08/2009, which
we are considering under the Freedom of Information Act. Under the Act
you should expect a reply from us to be sent by 04/09/2009, which is
twenty working days from receipt of your request.
If for any reason we are unable to provide you with a full response within
that time, we will contact you explaining the reasons for this and giving
a revised date by which we will reply.
If in the mean time you have any questions or would like to contact us
about your request, please contact us by telephone 01252 806513 or
alternatively email or write to us at the address below. Please be
assured that we are giving this our attention and will get back to you
shortly.
Yours sincerely
John Cere
[1][Royal Mail Group request email]
Freedom of Information Unit
PO Box 341, ALDERSHOT, GU11 1WW
Royal Mail is a trading name of Royal Mail Group Ltd. Registered in
England and Wales.
Registered number 4138203. Registered office at 148 Old Street, LONDON
EC1V 9HQ
References
Visible links
1. mailto:[Royal Mail Group request email]
Jonathan Gray left an annotation ()
I've blogged about this request at:
http://blog.okfn.org/2009/08/28/wheres-m...
I've also added this and other relevant data to:
http://ckan.net/tag/read/postboxes
Dear Mr Taylor
Thank you for your email dated 6 August 2009.
You asked whether Royal Mail has waived its copyright in the postbox
location document provided to you on 13 June 2008 (the "Document"), or
provided any licence to you.
Royal Mail provided the Document in response to your request under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 dated 14 May 2008, in accordance with its
obligations under the Act. However, provision of information in accordance
with the Act, including provision of the Document to you, does not in any
way constitute a waiver of Royal Mail's copyright, or other intellectual
property rights in the Document.
The Document was only provided to you to view in response to your Freedom
of Information Act request. No other express or implied rights in the
Document have been granted to you. We would highlight that the Document is
clearly marked "© Royal Mail Group Ltd, 2009. All rights reserved. No part
of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission, in
writing of Royal Mail Group Ltd."
I hope this suitably answers your questions. If you have any further
concerns or wish to request any further information please do contact us.
Yours sincerely,
Colin Young
Freedom of Information Manager
[Royal Mail Group request email]
Royal Mail is a trading name of Royal Mail Group Ltd. Registered in England
and Wales.
Registered number 4138203. Registered office at 100 Victoria Embankment,
LONDON, EC4Y 0HQ
|---------+----------------------------------------->
| | Tom Taylor |
| | <request-374-72354439@whatdoth|
| | eyknow.com> |
| | Sent by: Tom Taylor |
| | <request-374-72354439@whatdoth|
| | eyknow.com> |
| | |
| | |
| | 06/08/2009 12:20 |
|---------+----------------------------------------->
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| |
| To: [Royal Mail Group request email] |
| cc: |
| Subject: Re: Freedom of Information request - Location of every post box that the Royal Mail Group operates |
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Dear Sir or Madam,
In a previous FOI request the Royal Mail Group released a list of
all of the postboxes that it collects from.
Can you confirm what license this information has been released as?
Does the Royal Mail Group waive any copyright on this information?
Yours faithfully,
Tom Taylor
Brian Williams left an annotation ()
The list is incomplete. There are not enough characters for the entire post code. Example: Eythorne Road is shown as CT15 96 (which I presume is an internal Royal Mail code) and CT157 which is a subset of the post code for Eythorne Road, Shepherdswell, which is CT15 7PG.
The list is therefore useless, and needs to be requested again. Otherwise, why are the partial postcodes provided?
Edward Betts left an annotation ()
@ Brian Williams:
CT15 96 is the code written on the postbox. The postcode is given as CT15 7, the Royal Mail only has partial postcodes, they don't know the full postcode of that postbox.
P. Bowyer left an annotation ()
Can a follow-up request be made for updated data? My local post office has closed since 2008 and the Saturday collections have disappeared from some of my local postboxes.
Also, in light of the Royal Mail's response re: copyright, "© Royal Mail Group Ltd, 2009. All rights reserved. No part
of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission, in
writing of Royal Mail Group Ltd." -- what does this mean for websites that are using this data to display nearest postboxes? Are they illegal if using this source, as they are storing, reproducing and transmitting the data.
SSARMCA left an annotation ()
Shock - Horror! The Royal Mail will release the names and home addresses to anyone asking in violation of the DATA Protection Act. This places all women runing a business from home at risk of rapists and criminals. It places owners of companies and/or company directors at risk who's companies use a PO Box. It would explain why so many well-off people have been robbed in their homs with violence leaving the police stunned at the detail with which the criminals operated. You can check this under the FOI Act but we last week we received confirmation from the new chairman this is correct. Like Google and others that personal information should only be released via a serving police officer, a judge or lawyer. That would deter most criminals. soldier.sailorairmanroyalmarinescommando@live.co.uk
Peter Reynolds left an annotation ()
Dear SSARMCA
This thread is about the location of post boxes - the red things on the street, not about P O Boxes.
Kind regards
Peter
Mr Carter left an annotation ()
The 'real' address of PO Box addresses has always been available and renters of PO Box addresses are made away of that when they apply.
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Mike Maughan left an annotation ()
Just FYI I've converted the pdf list to a text file, if that's any help?
Regards, Mike