Postcode Portraits

WD6 1JF

in which E20 is no longer Hertfordshire

Royal Mail’s proposals to delete counties from their database of 28 million postal addresses because the postcode and property number are all that is required to identify an address, has provoked public concern that it will lead to a loss of local heritage and identity.

The removal of the county from postal address will not take place until 2013 and is in part a response to the continued use of obsolete county names such as Sussex, Gwynned, Cleveland and Avon.

Ian Beesley, chairman of the board that advises the Royal mail on the running of their database of postcodes told the Daily Telegraph how county names had become ‘a kind of vanity attachment’, adding that ‘people do get very worked up about it and one has to recognise it. It is in our history and our heritage. I want to say I was born in Lancashire, not in ‘M20’’, however, they are ‘no longer necessary for business and administrative purposes.’

However, as one generation bemoans the status of being identified under a alpha-numerical geographical reference, Eastenders, the 25-year running British soap opera staged around a community in the fictional area of Walford in London’s east-end, has launched an internet based spin-off aimed at a younger audience… titled E20 after London’s real east-end postcode.

The real life Albert Square is a set in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.

M13 9RW

in which you pay the most for your car insurance

Analysis carried out by Moneysupermarket.com has revealed that motorists in East Sussex are the most likely to claim on their insurance for having their vehicle stolen. The UK’s leading price comparison website’s analysis of data from insurance claims showed that over four per cent of motorists in the East Sussex village of Winchelsea have made a claim on their motor insurance for theft in the past five years, with Saltbury-by-the-sea in Cleveland and the village of Godstone in Surrey coming in second and third place.

However, the occurrence of robberies affecting small rural centres is not reflected in how car insurance premiums are weighted across the country. The highest premiums are charged in inner city areas of Manchester and Birmingham, where motorists pay around £500 more each year than the average premium in the cheapest areas in the country in Scotland and Cornwall where they pay £355.

A driver’s postcode is often the biggest, and sometimes the sole, contributing factor in calculating insurance premiums, leading to dramatic variations. The postcode is used to measure local risk factors looking at crime, flooding and even an areas claims history or its number of accident hotspots. Simon Warsop, director of pricing for Norwich Union, describes how insurers ‘look not only at a single postcode but… claims in the surrounding postcodes’ and how ‘a particular postcode might be seen as a target for car theft because [their neighbourhood] has an easy getaway route’. Insurers have even been accused of ‘redlining’ high-risk postcodes and refusing to quote on them.

The research also shows that more affluent areas are affected by an increase in home insurance premiums, as claim values are generally higher. Unsurprisingly, Greater London has the most expensive home insurance. All of the top ten most expensive postcodes for home insurance are in the greater London area: Stanmore in Harrow, has the highest average premium, alongside Golders Green, Southwark, Mill Hill, Northwood, Edgeware, Brent, Barnes and Winchmore - Bournemouth in Dorset has the cheapest.

MK10 9AA

in which Motorway Man votes

 

 Microtargeting has played a key part in the 2010 General Election, with all parties pursuing swing voters in marginal seats. The practice, a modification of the direct marketing used by commercial marketers, uses large and sophisticated databases to track voter habits, identify floating voters such as this years “Motorway Man” or “Lambrini Ladies” and cross reference these with the UK’s postcode system (GIS). The resulting geographical depiction makes an ideal reference for local based campaigning. 

But microtargeting databases reveal more than a roadmap for the party campaign bus. They identify the issues that are important to each voter, how that voter is likely to side with a party over these issues and therefore how a candidate can tailor their message on these issues specifically for different sections of the voting public. 

One of these voters, who has drawn the attention of election pollsters and the press, is “Motorway Man”. Termed by Experian, the name refers to a floating voter who “lives on a modern housing estate with easy access to the motorway”. He is seen as the successor to both “Essex Man” and “Mondeo Man”, who respectively backed Margret Thatcher and Tony Blair during the 1980s and 1990s. According to the Observer the term describes, “Childish, youngish voters who live in modern homes close to the main motorway networks, the less environmentally attractive pockets of England where planning permission for new developments is often easier to obtain.” In the same article, Richard Webber states how “where these sort of people live is increasingly incidental; the homes they live in are temporary… Often couples who live near motorway junctions and who will drive off separately in the morning to the different towns and business parks where they work… These people are much more politically and ideologically footloose. They look at political parties like some people look at cars. How they voted last time is not going to influence this time. For them, it’s purely a shopping experience.” 

The constituencies where Motorway Man votes, identified by Rob Hayward the elections expert advising the Tories, are “infill” areas where abandoned mines have been replaced by new housing estates. “They are inhabited by people who may be regional sales managers, reps production managers”. It is these people that Labour lost the support of, Peter Hain MP told the Financial Times, “The classic thing is where your mum and dad live in a solid Labour Town but you move into one of the suburbs, a new housing estate, and you start to think a little differently about yourself.” 

The Observer suggests that the rootless lifestyle of this demographic - to which the old ties of community are no longer important, having been replaced by a greater focus on material possessions - is something that will have major ramifications for the political process. 

Experian claims that “given that this younger group are followers of celebrity culture, it is likely to be more responsive to personal politics, which means they are more inclined towards the perceived charisma of ‘new man’ Cameron over the perceived dourness of Brown.” 

According to Webber, Labour’s emphasis on improving public services is unlikely to hold much support with Motorway Man. “They feel overtaxed, but they feel they are not getting much back from the state. Because of where they live, they don’t encounter people from different backgrounds. They don’t meet handicapped or old people; they don’t have children; and they don’t use public transport. So they don’t meet people who benefit from the services they are funding. As a result they don’t see the point of all the tax they pay.” 

Experian claim that the group represents 15% of the electorate. However, Motorway Man is significantly over-represented in key marginal constancies such as Crawley, Milton Keynes South, Rugby, Tamworth, Warwick and Leamington, Broxtowe, Loughborough, Worcester, Nuneaton, Stafford and Dartford - all Labour seats now held by the Conservatives.

N16 8TW

in which the Soldiers of Shakespeare reside

Postcode Gangs have received headline news over the last few years due to the rise in London gang related violence. The use of the postcode as a means of gang affiliation is not well documented, however stems from the need to identify clear territories in a dense urban context. London’s gangs named by the police in 2007, and in the more extensive goggle mash-up Gangs in London, often use the outward code (first 2-4 characters) of their area’s postcode to identify themselves and their territory. Although the gangs often affiliate with streets or housing estates the postcode districts are used accurately to identify their boundaries. Speaking to the BBC, L.Supt Leroy Logan, a police officer with more than a decade's experience on the beat in Hackney, said how “some teens are so intimidated they take long detours in order not to cross into "rival" postcodes. If they know they have to go to another part of the borough and have to go through another postcode they'll take a bus looping round that area, or get people to drop them." 

Other cities in the UK, such as Sheffield, have also seen the rise of postcode gangs. However the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee identified London (with an estimated 160 active gangs in the postal areas E, N, SE, SW, W), as the area of most concern and experiencing an arms race due to its competing factions. The government report cited evidence from the Youth Justice Board that postcodes and transport hubs, being used as identity badges, are a key factor driving offending.The situation has teenagers afraid to cross the road in some areas of London, because they would stray out of their postcode. A resident of Stoke Newington told the Guardian how groups of disaffected youths are defending their territories with knives and sometimes guns, in the London borough of Hackney, in what is becoming an increasingly violent turf war. “The Shakespeare gang (which takes its name from Shakespeare Walk, a popular Victorian residential street) have members as young as 10. It doesn’t matter what race you are, what religion you are; to join you just have to live in the right area. It’s all about territory. And, if someone from another gang strays into their manor, then it all blows up.” 

“There have always been territorial gangs in London” said Commander Shaun Sawyer from the Met Police’s Violent Crime Directorate. “What’s different is the levels of violence that are used. In most cases it is knives, and, extremely rarely, guns. It is postcode related. I’ve spoken to young people who say it is about respecting territory and, because they have got nothing else, they have to hold on to what little they have got. The trigger seems more tightly sprung.”

London gangs incorporate everyday street iconography as a marker of their territory as well as the use of graffiti tags. Street signs, which often include the postcode, are a clear marker of where a postcode district changes. These along with local authority signage for housing estates are often customised to identify gang ownership. In some areas of London the colours of street furniture and garbage bins (which are coloured according to the local authority in charge of them) are adopted into gang clothing as colours of allegiance.

FY6 8LA

in which travellers seek official recognition of their address

 

A judge has provoked outcry in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, after ordering the local council to aid in the granting of a postcode to an illegally developed traveller’s site. 

Fylde council, who had sought an injunction against a group of 70 travellers who had set up camp in a field on the outskirts of the village of Hardhorn, were ordered by the Crown Court Judge to ‘use their best endeavours’ to help the community secure a postcode for the plot of land. 

The travellers argued that the field, which currently has 30 caravans, needed a postcode to help emergency services find them. However, if a postcode is granted it will make the community eligible for connections to utilities such as gas, electricity and water as well as entitle them to claim state benefits. 

A planning application for the development of the site is outstanding and will be decided separately from the court order. The decision on whether to give the site a postcode will be taken by the Royal Mail.

BH5 1LT

in which it is hot no more

Experian – the consumer research and credit rating agency – released an updated version of its Mosaic UK profiles in 2009. Their new database, compiled from 441 data items selected from every person, household, postcode and Output Area in the UK - a total of ‘21 billion data items’ - made some revealing findings on the changing status of Britain’s aging population. 

According to current predictions, in 10 years time there will be 2.4million more over-65s than there are today. This shift in the number of people reaching retirement age, coupled with rising levels of wealth is already taking affect, according to the Daily Mail, with many retirees turning their backs on the traditional sea-side retirement destinations for preference over more sought after inland locations. 

 The traditional coastal retirement resorts, which grew to accommodate the retiring middle-class after the war, are no longer the destination of choice for this new demographic. Or rather the five new demographic types of retiree according to Mosaic: 

Beachcombers (who reflect the growing trend for the middle-class retired to select smaller communities, many on the coast or a river, rather than larger resorts) choose Barnstaple, Newport (Isle of Wight), Carmarthen, Inverness, Kendal, Newton Abbot. 

Balcony downsizers (higher-status retired people in their 70s and 80s, who live in privately owned or leasehold apartments in purpose-built blocks of flats suitable for those too fragile to cope with the upkeep of houses and gardens) choose Worthing, Boscombe, Edinburgh, Southend-on-Sea, Barnet, Kingston upon Thames. 

Golden retirement (people with accumulated assets, who pick prestigious retirement communities, lead busy social lives, drive and garden) choose Exeter, Southampton, Poole, Chichester, Norwich, Canterbury and Ipswich. 

Bungalow quietude (retirees with modest pensions, living in older-style bungalows, often in less well-off areas unattractive to younger families) choose Blackpool, Rhyl, Scarborough, Plymouth, Nottingham, Peterborough, Newcastle upon Tyne, Lincoln, Leicester. 

Country-loving elders (people on comfortable incomes living in former farms or older-style properties in quiet villages and market towns) choose Truro, King's Lynn, Hereford, Carlisle, Shrewsbury. 

This shift in lifestyle choice, partly supported by the sale of mortgage-free homes, is better accommodated for by inland market towns, historic cities and major cultural destinations. 

‘People want to spend more of their retirement in the country, in areas of attractive scenery,’ said Richard Webber, visiting professor of geography at University College London, who helped develop Mosaic. ‘And they are choosing to live a long way from London and other major population centres.’ 

Webber said around half of those reaching retirement age choose to carry on living in their own home, or at least in the same area. But of those with above-average wealth, around 60 per cent choose to live somewhere else. Half of these now select less traditional retirement destinations. 

‘A lot more older people want to retire to places of historic importance, places that have orchestras and festivals,’ said Webber. ‘They're looking at historic market towns and cities, places like Bath and Cheltenham, cathedral cities and university towns where there are beautiful buildings.’

W12 7RJ

in which the BBC ponders geodemographics

The influence of geodemographic classification on the shaping of Britain over the last decade was noted in the BBC’s documentary series, ‘History of Now: The Story of the Noughties’. 

The programme questioned the effect of marketing and consumerism on the democratic and political process over the last decade.