Proper use of numbers vital

MANAWATU District Council is requesting rural property owners to remove out-of-date numbers on their letterboxes because of confusion facing service, delivery and emergency drivers attempting to correctly locate addresses.

Senior Planner, Wendy Thompson, said council had been notified of properties in some parts of the district still carrying old rural numbers instead of the RAPID (Rural Address Property Identification Database) numbering system.

“The RAPID system, which has been in place for about 10 years, is linked to all dwellings in the district,” she said, “with every house being allocated a specific number by council. But there are still some old numbers that people are quoting and this is causing confusion.”

Ms Thompson said rural dwellers responded positively to the RAPID system when it was introduced and had welcomed the idea of being able to quote a number in a crisis rather than having to describe where they lived.

“They felt it was particularly useful for emergency services such as police, fire and ambulance who had sometimes experienced difficulty in the past in finding a particular property.”

The RAPID system differs from the urban setup in that its numbers are based on how far a gateway is from the beginning of the road and the numbers on the right-hand side of the road are even and those on the left are odd.

The number is worked out by multiplying the distance (in kilometres) by 100. A house 0.7km on the right-hand side of “Smith Road” would be No 70, while 257 “Smith Road” would be 2.57km along the road on the left-hand side.

Ms Thompson said the RAPID numbers were distinctive – with a red number on a white background – and clearly visible to visitors to the property, such as courier and stock truck drivers and emergency personnel.

“It’s vital that the owner use the RAPID number because the address is also registered in Wellington for election purposes, statistical data and in case of an emergency.”