St. Lucia Enters Zip Code Era

SAINT Lucia Postal Service Thursday introduced a new way of writing postal addresses, reaching, in the process, a milestone in its development and that of the country.

What is introduced is something called Postcodes, which is the British identifier for a given postal delivery point or a collection of postal delivery points. The same thing is called zip codes under the American system.

Postmaster General, Josiah Charles in explaining the relevance of the new system noted that it plays a significant role in the country’s economic and social development.

“Any address within a country must help identify a geographical location and facilitate the flow of goods, services and communications among persons, businesses, government and organizations. Bearing these key functions of addressing in mind and guided by the UPU (Universal Postal Union) addressing standards, the government of Saint Lucia through the Saint Lucia Postal Service endeavoured to institutionalize a national postal addressing policy,” Charles said.

According to him the postcodes or zip codes identify a delivery point with minimal error and serve as a tool for businesses and government departments for collecting and comparing data on postcode areas, which assists in establishing market segments that are key to business development and providing services within the country.

“They allow Saint Lucia to meet international postal standards, facilitating international trade and contribute positively towards the ease of doing business in a country,” Charles said.

He added that postcodes facilitate the business exchange between medium and small enterprises (who mainly use the postal system) thereby contributing to economic development.

The model adopted by Saint Lucia Postal Service works as follows: First there is something called the Postal Zones which are the existing electoral divisions. They are called Postal Administrative Divisions. There are 17 electoral or postal divisions. Bear in mind that the international code for Saint Lucia are the digits LC. This code is already in existence.

The postcode model for Saint Lucia is alphanumeric, meaning that it contains both letters and numbers. Together they make up seven digits, an example being AA01 101. Double space the space between the fourth and fifth characters.

Here’s how it really works: select an electoral or postal division, example Gros Islet which is 01. Castries Northwest is 02, Castries North 03, Castries Central 04, Castries East 05 and so on. The postcode reads thus: LC (for Saint Lucia) and 01 (for Gros islet). The first part of the postcode will look like this: LC01.

Within the Gros Islet electoral or postal division there are six delivery points which are post offices or stand-alone letter boxes. Each of those delivery points is given a number, example,Marisule Post Office has the number 5. Now since the post offices serve surrounding areas each of the main areas a post office serves is given a number. The Marisule Post Office, for example, serves seven officially named areas, therefore a number is assigned to each area starting at 01.

Therefore a resident living in Marisule, Gros Islet would have a postal address like this: Mr. Micah George, Marisule (Gros Islet), LC01 501, Saint Lucia. For someone living in Castries East the first part of the postcode will be LC05. If that person lives in Entrepot for example then the nearest post office would be the Marchand Post Office. That person’s postal address would be as follows: Mr. Micah George, Entrepot, Marchand P.O, Castries LC05 201, Saint Lucia.

The few building numbers Saint Lucia has, its many unnamed streets, unplanned development, limited home delivery and its absence of GPS maps and detailed zoning were all taken into consideration when developing a model for post-coding Saint Lucia.

The country’s postal network and the existence of its electoral boundaries/divisions were also taken into consideration.

With postcodes there will be faster sorting, routing and delivery of mails. It will facilitate both manual and machine handling, reduce the risk of confusion between destinations with similar name, and encourage correct formatting of addresses on items it will also reduce the amount of undeliverable mail and meet international addressing standards driven by e-commerce.