Old postcode system ‘too much of a lottery’

POSTCODES are becoming obsolete as three in four people in the UK have an address that does not uniquely lead directly to them, says a technology firm.

British company What3words said the system needs to change after its survey of 1,000 people in the UK found 74 per cent said deliveries, services and visitors struggled to find their homes or businesses using postcodes.

That would mean postcodes statistically failed almost 46 million people nationally, it claimed. Promoting its own system, What3words suggested dividing the planet into three-metresquare grids, giving each a unique three-word address, which allowing everyone to pinpoint an exact location.

The Queen’s Buckingham Palace address, for example, would be “rocks, skin, grand”. No other address in the world would share that combination. And 10 Downing Street would be addressed as “snake, radar, loose”.

Chris Sheldrick, co-founder, said: “Our current addressing system wasn’t designed for drone deliveries and hailing autonomous taxis ... we’ve all felt the frustration of having a lukewarm pizza turn up because it’s taken so long for the driver to find us, or of being lost despite the satnav telling us ‘you have arrived at your destination’.” Royal Mail argued the current system worked and was “a vital part” of deliveries.

The United Nations currently uses the What3words system as does Mercedes and Domino’s in the Caribbean.