FOI REF: FOI/2023/4816
You asked
Would it be possible to get a list of all postcodes linked to residential households in England?
We said
Thank you for your freedom of information request.
ONS does not currently produce any products that provide a list of postcodes that encompass residential properties and has no plans to do so from Census 2021.
Postcodes are assigned and maintained by Royal Mail for the purposes of assigning delivery points to addresses. Royal Mail maintain their own addressing product -- the Postal Address File -- that comprises 29 million addresses. Another addressing product called AddressBase Premium is produced by GeoPlace -- a partnership of Ordnance Survey and various public bodies -- which formed the basis of the Census Address Frame. It is possible to use this product to identify only addresses that are used for residential purposes, and to filter unique postcodes to extract the information required.
ONS produces and maintains a postcode geography product called the National Statistics Postcode Lookup. This product is updated quarterly and is available freely through the Open Geography Portal. It does not however distinguish between postcodes used for residential and non-residential purposes.
ONS do, however, produce our own census geographies called Output Areas (OAs). These are intended to provide relatively standardised geographies, comprising between 40 and 250 residential households. They allow for comparative statistical analysis and are used to produce other standard geographies, such as Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs) and Middle Layer Super Output Areas (MSOAs). Products containing the geographies for OAs are also available through the ONS Open Geography Portal.