I have been using the OpenStreetMap Nominatim service for 4 months geocoding postcodes without any issue until today 13/10/2021. For example a valid postcode of "NW10 8QB" returns no result but if you do a structure search for Sapphire Road this returns the correct result with the same postcode as above "NW10 8QB" This postcode geocoded correctly yesterday using the OpenStreetMap Nominatim service so something must have broken since? Can someone please check and confirm the problem and provide a likely resolution timeframe? Kind Regards, Tom asked 13 Oct '21, 13:11  Tommy_F |
One Answer:
We imported August Royalmail data for GB yesterday but compared to the May data many postcodes were missing spaces ("NW10 8QB" vs "NW108QB"). Tracked in https://github.com/osm-search/gb-postcode-data/issues/9 Timeframe is 1-2 days answered 13 Oct '21, 13:42  mtmail |
@mtmail: there doesn't seem to be a consistent format for postcodes in UK official data: choices are <out><space><in>; no space, or the outcode padded to 4 or 5 with spaces. Most people expect the first format. Often it is best to take the rightmost 3 characters & then trim what is left. There should always be a number followed by two characters for the last part of the code, the outcode can have from 2 to 4 characters starting with a letter.
@sk53 Thanks, I made sure it's always with space now (https://github.com/osm-search/gb-postcode-data/issues/9). It used to be the case with Ordenance Survey OSCode exports, but with their August data they changed/broke it.