Street Naming and Numbering

North Hertfordshire District Council is the Street Naming and Numbering authority for the North Hertfordshire district. It carries out these functions under the provisions of the Town Improvements Clauses Act 1847.

The Council needs to be contacted if:

a developer requires addresses for a new property or properties
a property owner wants to renumber or rename their property
a property owner wants to give their property a name

Why use us to number or name your property?

The address of a property is increasingly becoming a very important issue. More organisations, postal and emergency services, credit reference agencies and the general public need an efficient means of locating, referencing and authenticating properties.

The local authority have a statutory duty to cause new houses and developments to be numbered and streets to be named and subsequently will provide an applicant with a dwelling number under the above act. However, the Council does not have a duty to notify statutory organisations or others of any new address. It cannot be stressed enough how important it is for properties to be formally named and numbered as the Emergency Services, statutory undertakers (gas, electricity, water and telephone companies) all locate the property by the information we provide. If you do not wish to pay for these additional services a number will be allocated to the property and an individual development will need to undertake these notifications. If the council's notification service is not used when a number is first allocated this will be registered on the land charges search. Subsequent purchasers are able to use this service retrospectively.

Upon receipt of an application, with the appropriate fee as set out below, North Hertfordshire District Council will undertake this service on your behalf and will notify organisations of new address changes by issuing precise location plans together with the relevant documents. These official agencies include Police, Fire, Ambulance, Electoral Registration, Council Tax, Royal Mail, Ordnance Survey, Land Charges and Land Registry.

Cost of the service

North Hertfordshire District Council will aim to process individual applications within 10 working days, however larger numbering schemes will take longer and the applicant will be notified of this at the initial stage and will be kept informed along the process.

The charges for the notification of new addresses and amendments to the official agencies are:

Change of house name - £105.00
Changes to an existing house number - £105.00
Adding an "Alias" name to an existing numbered property - £105.00
New Buildings (residential or commercial) - £105.00 per plot
Changes to an existing officially named road - £525.00 per household request
Extra copies of marked up plans - £21.00 per copy

Street Naming Policy

The Council gives preference to names which reflect the historical significance of the site.
Street names should not be difficult to pronounce or spell.
New street names should not duplicate any similar name already in use within the district. A variation in the terminal word, example, "street", "road", "avenue", will not be accepted as sufficient reason to duplicate a name.
Buildings (including those on corner sites) are numbered according to the street in which the main entrance is to be found and the manipulation of numbering in order to secure a "prestige" address or to avoid an address which is thought to have undesired associations will not be sanctioned.
Streets can be named after people related to a particular area or site. However, such names will only be considered if the person in question is deceased.
It is the responsibility of the developer to provide street nameplates at the appropriate locations unless prior discussions with the Naming & Numbering Officer have already taken place. The Council will give advice on specification, quantity and locations.

Numbering Policy

Provisions can be made to omit certain numbers, e.g. 13.
The use of numbers followed by letters may be considered for infill builds of no more than 3 dwellings e.g 1a, 1b, 1c. These are needed, for instance, when one large house in a road is demolished and replaced by (say) three smaller houses. Larger infill builds will be addressed with an identifier for the row or a suitable building name.
As a general rule all roads will be numbered with odd numbers on one side and evens on the other. Small cul-de-sac developments may be numbered sequentially.
The Council's numbering sequence is final.
Properties will be numbered in relation to the road in which their primary pedestrian access is located.