How Important Is The Postcode To Royal Mail?

[Playbill]

I ask because I have received an envelope with what appears to be a Christmas card inside. It is clearly written, with the same house number as mine and a road starting with same letter, but with an entirely different postcode for a village a few miles away. There is no surname to the address.
The postcode seems to have been completely ignored.

I often defend the Royal Mail's service to those who knock it and this was a surprise. I expect they were very busy during the last few weeks and would have thought they had less time to hand sort.

[starone]

I would circle the postcode so that it shows clearly and write 'try this postcode, not known at this address', on the envelope and put it back in the postbox.

[BlueToffee]

The Post Code system works extremely well 99.9% of the time. in this case perhaps the time of year and amount of post were contributory factors. I think we can forgive them the odd little mistake.

[starone]

I think machines recognise the postcode. Surely they would not have time in these days for hand sorting, or would they?

[tamborine]

Most foreign xmas card had my post code scrawled over address, @ PO I presume

[argorstran]

I can think of two possibilities
1) the letter was delivered erroneously - mistakes occur from time to time
2) there is no road of that name in the village that the postcode applies to , and your address was the one that the postman thought most likely .

If you are able to see the postman you can hand the letter back to him and explain , or you can repost the letter with an appropriate note such as " Not known at X st . Y town " ...or whatever , written on the front .

[Playbill]

Starbuckone: I have already put it back in a postbox and put 'delivered to wrong postcode'.

BlueToffee: I agree with you. It just seemed odd that at this busy time of year the postcode was ignored and someone actually read the address (though not correctly!)

[Playbill]

The road and house number does exist and was clearly written.

It must have been delivered about 23rd or 24th December and is probably only a Christmas card and nothing urgent.

[Jonathan-Joe]

A letter will go through several sorts its journey, in a kind of hierarchy of district, area, sector. These sorts are usually mechanical using the postcode. However, the letters and packets for the postman's walk will not be in strict order when he picks them up. He makes a final sort manually, using the full address, as the order in which he visits addresses may not agree with a sorted order of post codes.
So, the postcode is important for high level sorting, your postman made a mistake in his low level sort.
(I couldn't find a gender inclusive term for "postman")

[tamborine]

I sent pcards from FarEast with just name & UK post code, all arrived - its a great system ;)

[mushroom25]

//(I couldn't find a gender inclusive term for "postman") //

would anything other than "postman" fit into the song about the postal worker who's accompanied by a black and white cat?

[tamborine]

postie should do it ?

[Canary42]

It sounds as though the letter somehow got into the wrong sorted postcode set. The postie receives his load sorted into postcode order, and for each postcode he then sorts this according to his route. So if for example all the letters within a single sort code were for the same street (which is frequently the case) the postie would only look at the house number when doing his/her sort, so would be unlikely to pick up this error.

I have on one or two occasions received mail for my house number but in different street (but in these cases the post code only differed by one character). I just stick them back in the post and they get delivered OK second time round.

[boxtops]

It might just have got stuck to the back of another letter when it whizzed through the scanning device, anything like that. It can also be "operator error", we regularly get letters for an address which is the same house number and street name, but in a different part of the country. The walking postman ought to pick those out, but doesn't.

[Playbill]

Thanks for all the interest and replies.

Jonathan-Joe, that sounds like what must have occurred.
'Postperson' is the probably the pc term you require. But even he or she is called 'Pat' it will still not rhyme with 'cat' :)

[Dodger666]

Postal Delivery Operative is the in term now:-

http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/postal-delivery-operatives/22129411