A while back I blogged about the fact that the Royal Mail had shutdown a third-party provider of post code information Ernest Marples. Well as with all things there were knock on effects.
 
I was searching for Open Australia's new Planning Alerts service (a very cool site that emails you when a Development Application is submitted in your area) when I stumbled upon the UK equivelant. Except the UK Planning Alerts service is stumped at the moment. Right now, they can't actually send out any alerts because their source of Post Code information (yup, Ernest Marples) has had to withdraw due to legal action by the Royal Mail.
 
This seems to me to be a text book example of over restrictive controls of Public Information preventing third parties from developing and running innovative new services.
 
Sigh