June 16, 2016

How to get a free file of UK outward postcodes

By Mike Lewis

In my article on calculating distances between UK postcodes, I posted a link to a site named EasyPeasy from where you can download a file containing the grid references of outward postcodes. Several HexCentral readers have recently contacted me to tell me that the link is now dead and the site no longer available.

I have now updated the article to include a new link. This one is to a site hosted by Dan Gibbs, which includes an up-to-date version of the outward postcode file. This version of the file is superior to the one formerly provided by EasyPeasy, as it also includes latitudes and longitudes, and the names of towns and counties (or their equivalents). The site warns that the town names are not completely accurate, but that won't matter for the distance calculations, as these only need the outward postcodes and the grid references.

My thanks to Dan Gibbs for providing this useful resource (free of charge), and to Adrian Bordicott for pointing it out to me.