Monday 27 April 2009

Post boxes

I've been saving a little job for a rainy day. I didn't know I'd have to wait for weeks for the rain. We are very keen to see some heavy rain for our garden and allotment. It rained a bit so we went out to check the post boxes in HU9 in Hull. We've checked other parts of the city based on a list provided by the Royal Mail, but the list is not that good. The HU9 area is a roughly triangular slice of the city, with Holderness Road on the north-west hypotenuse, the river Humber on the south side and the city boundary to the east. Once again a systematic search proved very difficult because of the quality of the list descriptions.

A few examples: Southcoates Lane had no post boxes on it according to the list but actually had three boxes along its length. The box described as Bilton Grange remains unmapped, Bilton Grange is district of the city which we searched but clearly not well enough, the name of the road the box is on would have been nice . The box described as on Barham Road is actually on the junction of Staveley Road and Thanet Road. Others were up to the usual Royal Mail standard of being near the described road rather than on it. There's more of this fun to come in future trips.

2 comments:

Gregory said...

I think I remember you having trouble in Hull before. Have you ever seen a post(wo)man on his/her collection round to stop and ask how they first learn their round? It would be interesting if they say "Oh I get given this listed with much more detailed descriptions than your list" and possibly make that FOI reply inaccurate.
Or if they're close to Bilton Grange when you talk to them they might know where the box is (or a great story as to how it disappeared/moved/got abducted).

I just go for mapping the refrences when I see the box now, and planning to spend some time checking it. Durham(uni) has all the boxes except 2, and I think I have 2 without refs.

Chris Hill said...

@Gregory I have had trouble before. I thought about button-holing a postie, but I don't live in Hull (about 15km outside) so it's hard to pin one down.

What I would be interested in is what anyone else thinks of the quality of their local postcode area - is this consistent across the UK or has someone in this area done a poor job of compiling this list?