Comments on: Ernest Marples: the first month

By: Planning alerts, postcodes and local democracy

Planning alerts, postcodes and local democracy — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:30:32 +0000

[...] work? Unfortunately, the Royal Mail has a stranglehold on the postcodes database. Read more on Harry Metcalfe’s blog. So a new service has been established at ernestmarples.com; a sort of postcode liberation API, [...]

By: Stuff I’ve seen August 19th through August 22nd | Podnosh

Stuff I’ve seen August 19th through August 22nd | Podnosh — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 11:01:18 +0000

[...] Ernest Marples: the first month – Harry Metcalfe – "Scores of people have sent us messages of support. I’ve even been hugged." [...]

By: No Telling How Ernest Marples Freed the UK Postal Code | Open Source Blog

No Telling How Ernest Marples Freed the UK Postal Code | Open Source Blog — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:43:22 +0000

[...] Metcalfe, one of the API’s creators, explains why he believes the service is necessary: “Lots of the most useful services… have no choice but to use whatever data they can [...]

By: Geeklawyer

Geeklawyer — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:54:25 +0000

Have you seen this pledgebank pledge? http://www.pledgebank.com/postcode

By: No Telling How Ernest Marples Freed the UK Postal Code

No Telling How Ernest Marples Freed the UK Postal Code — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:59:07 +0000

[...] Metcalfe, one of the API’s creators, explains why he believes the service is necessary: “Lots of the most useful services… have no choice but to use whatever data they can [...]

By: Harry

Harry — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:13:38 +0000

If you could limit your requests to one every couple of seconds that would be great.

As for caching: well, in short, that’s up to you. *I* certainly don’t mind. The Royal Mail may. We’re in unfamiliar territory!

By: Rich

Rich — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:58:44 +0000

Hi,

I have a question about ErnestMarples.com – am I allowed to cache the longs/lats I look up? Suppose I have a database of addresses with a column called postcodes – I then add two columns called longitude and latitude. I write some code to look up each postcode at your website and then populate my new columns accordingly.

Provided I don’t send my requests to you too quickly, is this acceptable usage of the system, or must I always go back to your website every time I want to get the long/lat for a particular postcode?

Keep up the good work, you guys deserve medals!!

Rich