CM postcode area

Postcode district boundaries: Bing / Google

The CM postcode area, also known as the Chelmsford postcode area, is a group of 25 postcode districts in England, which are subdivisions of 16 post towns. These postcode districts cover central Essex (including Chelmsford, Harlow, Brentwood, Billericay, Braintree, Burnham-on-Crouch, Dunmow, Epping, Ingatestone, Maldon, Ongar, Southminster, Stansted and Witham), plus a small part of east Hertfordshire (including Bishop's Stortford and Sawbridgeworth) and a very small part of the London Borough of Havering.

The southern part of the CM7 district for Braintree was recoded to CM77 in 2002.

Coverage

The Stansted post town (CM24) is entirely surrounded by the Bishop's Stortford post town (CM22 and CM23). The approximate coverage of the postcode districts:

Map

See also

References

List of postcode areas in the United Kingdom

For the purposes of directing mail, the United Kingdom is divided by Royal Mail into postcode areas. The postcode area is the largest geographical unit used and forms the initial characters of the alphanumeric UK postcode. There are currently 121 geographic postcode areas in use in the UK and a further 3 often combined with these covering the Crown Dependencies of Guernsey, Jersey and Isle of Man.

Subdivision

Each postcode area is further divided into post towns and postcode districts. There are on average 20 postcode districts to a postcode area. The London post town is instead divided into several postcode areas.

Scope

The single or pair of letters chosen for postcode areas are generally intended as a mnemonic for the places served. Postcode areas, post towns and postcode districts do not follow political boundaries and usually serve much larger areas than the place names with which they are associated. For example, within the PA postcode area the PA1 and PA78 postcode districts are 140 miles apart; and the eight postcode areas of the London post town cover only 40% of Greater London. The remainder of its area is covered by sections of twelve adjoining postcode areas: EN, IG, RM, DA, BR, TN, CR, SM, KT, TW, HA and UB.