CR Postcode Area

The CR postcode area, also known as the Croydon postcode area, is a group of nine postcode districts in England, which are subdivisions of eight post towns. These postcode districts cover parts of South London and north-east Surrey.

The CR5 postcode covers the areas of Coulsdon, Old Coulsdon, Netherne On The Hill, Hooley and parts of Chipstead. These areas are covers my a local community magazine of the same name CR5 Magazine which deliveres free copies every month to this area and supplies its residents with a website www.cr5.co.uk The shops in Coulsdon's triving town centre have made this area a great local alternative to Croyden for shoppers.

The main sorting office is in Croydon, and the area served includes most of the London Borough of Croydon, the southeastern part of the London Borough of Merton and a small part of the London Borough of Sutton, while most of CR3 and CR6 cover the northern part of the Tandridge district of Surrey and the southern part of CR5 covers a small part of the borough of Reigate and Banstead.

Croydon was the second town outside London to have experimental postcodes introduced in 1966 (Norwich having been the first). The system originally introduced in Croydon defined the postcode area CRO (letter 'O'), while Norwich used NOR. The postcode experiment was successful, but it was decided that the first part of a postcode should be two letters and a number, so NOR became NR1. However, to save people in Croydon having to change their postcodes, Royal Mail changed CRO to CR0 (digit '0'). As Croydon therefore had the CR0 postcode for its central area, the CR1 postcode was never subsequently introduced, making CR the only postcode area with a district 0 that does not also have a district 1. Another lasting consequence of the experiment is that the CR9 district has only ever been allocated to large users in Croydon – the only UK post town to have all its ordinary and high-volume addresses segregated non-geographically.