In the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, the postcode lottery is the unequal provision of services such as healthcare, education and insurance prices depending on the geographic area or

postcode A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal ...

. Postcodes can directly affect the services an area can obtain, such as

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

prices. Despite having many non-postal uses, postcodes are only determined based on

Royal Mail , kw, Postya Riel, ga, An Post Ríoga , logo = Royal Mail.svg , logo_size = 250px , type = Public limited company , traded_as = , foundation = , founder = Henry VIII , location = London, England, UK , key_people = * Keith Williams ...

operations and bear little relation to local government boundaries. More broadly, there is an unequal provision of services around the country, especially in

public services A public service is any service intended to address specific needs pertaining to the aggregate members of a community. Public services are available to people within a government jurisdiction as provided directly through public sector agencies o ...

, such as access to cancer drugs in the healthcare system or quality of education. These are more likely to be a result of local budgets and decision-making than actual postcodes. Postcodes were devised solely for the purposes of sorting and directing mail and rarely coincide with political boundaries. However, over time they have become a geographical reference in their own right with postcodes and postcode groups becoming synonymous with certain towns and districts. Further to this, the postcode has been used by organisations for other applications including government statistics, marketing, calculation of car and household insurance premiums and credit referencing.

Changing postcodes

There are several groups, mostly on the fringes of major population centres, who are affected in one way or another by the associations of their postcode. There is a movement in the

Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead is a Royal Borough of Berkshire, in South East England. It is named after both the towns of Maidenhead and Windsor, the borough also covers the nearby towns of Ascot and Eton. It is home to Windsor ...

to change the first two characters of their postcodes from to WM for vanity, so as not to be associated with

Slough Slough () is a town and unparished area in the unitary authority of the same name in Berkshire, England, bordering west London. It lies in the Thames Valley, west of central London and north-east of Reading, at the intersection of the M4, ...

. A businessman in Ilford wishes to have the postcode district of changed to as he claims customers do not realise his business is based in Greater London. Some residents of West Heath in asked to have their postcodes changed to that of adjacent

Bexleyheath Bexleyheath is a town in south-east London, England. It had a population of 31,929 as at 2011. Bexleyheath is located south-east of Charing Cross, and forms part of the London Borough of Bexley. It is identified in the London Plan as one ...

, citing higher insurance premiums as reason to change. Some residents of

Kingston Vale Kingston Vale with Kingston Hill is a district in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in south-west London. It is a residential area between Richmond Park, the much smaller Putney Vale, Wimbledon and Putney Commons, Wimbledon Common, Coomb ...

in wish to have their postcodes changed to adjacent

Kingston upon Thames Kingston upon Thames (hyphenated until 1965, colloquially known as Kingston) is a town in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, England. It is situated on the River Thames and southwest of Charing Cross. It is notable a ...

for the same reasons. In all these cases

has said that there is "virtually no hope" of changing the postcode, referring to their policy of changing postcodes only to match changes in their operations. Under this policy residents of the

Wirral Peninsula Wirral (; ), known locally as The Wirral, is a peninsula in North West England. The roughly rectangular peninsula is about long and wide and is bounded by the River Dee to the west (forming the boundary with Wales), the River Mersey to th ...

had their postcodes changed from the (Liverpool) to (Chester) group when a new sorting office was opened. Some postcode areas straddle

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

's borders with

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

. Examples of such postcodes include , , and . This has led to

British Sky Broadcasting Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...

subscribers receiving the wrong BBC and ITV regions, and newly licensed

radio amateurs An amateur radio operator is someone who uses equipment at an amateur radio station to engage in two-way personal communications with other amateur operators on radio frequencies assigned to the amateur radio service. Amateur radio operators hav ...

being given incorrect

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assig ...

Extended use of postcodes

The

Postal Services Commission The Postal Services Commission, known as Postcomm, was a non-ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom charged with overseeing the quality and universal service of post in the United Kingdom. It was established in 2000 under ...

says the following regarding the extended use of postcodes and the

Postcode Address File The Postcode Address File (PAF) is a database that contains all known "delivery points" and postcodes in the United Kingdom. The PAF is a collection of over 29 million Royal Mail postal addresses and 1.8 million postcodes. It is available in ...

(PAF):

References

{{Wiktionary Geodemography Political geography Postcodes in the United Kingdom

Changing postcodes

Extended use of postcodes

See also

References