Royal Mail creates E20 postcode for Olympic Park

UK operator Royal Mail has introduced a new E20 postcode district which will incorporate the Olympic Park in London. Royal Mail’s Address Management Unit, which manages a database of over 1.75m UK postcodes, has introduced the new E20 postcode to accommodate the site which falls across four London boroughs.

The most recent new postcode district to be introduced, prior to E20, was for the Highland community of Morvern last year.

The postcode will serve five new neighbourhoods that the Olympic Park Legacy Company is planning to create after the 2012 Games when the area will be renamed the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Key venues have been allocated their own individual postcode. The main Olympic Stadium postcode is E20 2ST.

E20 also covers neighbouring areas including the residential apartments in the Athletes Village, and the Westfield Stratford City shopping Centre which will house 400 retail units.

Stephen Agar, Royal Mail’s director of regulated business, said: “It is fitting that such a significant development in London has been allocated its own easily recognisable postcode more than 150 years after the world’s first postcodes were introduced in the Capital.”

More than 100 postcodes have already been allocated to developments across the Olympic Park.  Each postcode covers up to 99 addresses. These postcodes become live on Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File® and online Postcode Finder when a property is built and ready to receive mail.

Initially three sectors have been introduced: E20 1, E20 2 and E20 3.  These sectors have the capacity to provide delivery postcodes for 120,000 addresses, with the option for sectors 4 – 9 to be incorporated as the site develops in the decades to come.

Creating a new E20 postcode district will help Royal Mail’s Dockland’s delivery office sort the mail for delivery across the Olympic Park.  It will also create a lasting legacy for London’s third hosting of the Games, and ensure that all future building developments can be accommodated within the postcode structure.

Andrew Altman, chief executive of the Olympic Park Legacy Company, which will manage the Park after the Games, said: “This is a new postcode for a new part of London. E20 will be one of the capital’s most popular districts focused on community-living, sport and entertainment.

“Five new neighbourhoods, inspired by the best of London’s design and architecture, will sit among 250 acres of open space, 6.5km of waterways and sporting venues. The Park will be a magnet for community sport, international events and cultural attractions.”

Construction of the first new neighbourhood will commence in 2013, and from next month developers can bid to build its 800 homes that will sit between the VeloPark and the Athletes Village in the north-east of the Park. In total, up to 8,000 homes will be built over the next 20 years.

Royal Mail was the first postal operator to establish a postcode system. The first postal districts were introduced in London in 1857.  Its current alphanumeric code system was introduced in the late 1950s.