CO1 9SR Colchester

Live postcode, introduced February 2005. Ward: Castle. Region: East of England.

Streets

No addresses are linked to this postcode in the ONS UPRN Directory.

Council tax

What each band costs in Colchester in 2026-27: Band D £2,283 a year on average, including the police, fire and any county and parish charges.

ABCDEFGH
£1,522£1,776£2,029£2,283£2,790£3,297£3,805£4,566

Homes by band in the neighbourhood around this postcode: most are in band B (38% of about 820 homes).

Sources: Valuation Office Agency, Council Tax: stock of properties, homes at 31 March 2026 (counts rounded to the nearest 10; some small counts withheld), for the neighbourhood (census area of about 700 homes) around it, not just this postcode; Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, council tax levels 2026-27. Bands are charged as fixed shares of Band D; the actual bill depends on the parish and on discounts such as the single-person discount. Check a home's own band with the official council tax band checker.

Planning and heritage

  • Conservation area: yes, COLCHESTER AREA 1. Extensions, demolition, some windows and doors, and work on trees need consent.
  • Listed buildings within 100 m of this postcode: 23.
  • Article 4 direction (removing permitted development rights): none recorded, though not every council has published theirs.
  • Tree preservation orders: 1 protected tree within 100 m of this postcode.
  • Green belt: no.

Listed buildings

Brownfield land registered for housing within 1.0 km

  • ST BOTOLPHS CULTURAL QUARTER, EAST OF QUEEN STREET, not permissioned (430 m)
  • 23 ST JULIAN GROVE, not permissioned (560 m)
  • BRITANNIA WORKS SITE, (CAR PARK OFF BRITANNIA WAY), FRONTING ST JULIAN GROVE, not permissioned (610 m)
  • LAND AND BUILDINGS BETWEEN NUMBERS 192 AND 176 MAGDALEN STREET, not permissioned (690 m)
  • ESSEX COUNTY HOSPITAL SITE. LEXDEN ROAD. COLCHESTER, not permissioned (740 m)
  • LAND, BUILDINGS AND FORMER CBT BUS DEPOT FRONTING MAGDALEN STREET AND MILITARY ROAD, not permissioned (740 m)
  • BT REPEATER STATION AND LAND ADJACENT TO GUILDFORD ROAD FACING EXETER DRIVE, not permissioned (860 m)
  • PARKING LAND USED BY ROBERTSONS VAN HIRE BETWEEN 145 AND 149 MAGDALEN STREET, not permissioned (900 m)

Source: planning.data.gov.uk (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government), compiled from councils and, for listed buildings, Historic England's National Heritage List. Conservation areas, Article 4 directions, tree preservation areas and the green belt are checked at each postcode's centre. Listed buildings and protected trees are counted within 100 m of this postcode. Councils publish Article 4 directions, tree preservation orders and brownfield registers to different standards, and some not yet. Planning applications are not here: there is no national open record of them yet.

Flood risk

The Environment Agency's long-term flood risk figures have not been loaded for this postcode yet.

Flood zone for planning: no postcode centre is in flood zone 2 or 3.

Sources: Environment Agency Flood risk: postcode search tool data (loaded 29 October 2026), Risk of Flooding from Rivers and Sea: postcodes in areas at risk (loaded 29 October 2026) and Flood Map for Planning (loaded 28 October 2026). Flood zones are checked at each postcode's centre point. These are models of areas, which their publishers say are not suitable for showing whether an individual property is at risk, and they do not cover flooding from sewers or drains. Check an address on the official long-term flood risk service.

Broadband

No Ofcom figures for this postcode.

Getting around

Sources: Department for Transport, NaPTAN (every public transport stop), as at 31 October 2026; Office of Rail and Road, Estimates of station usage 2024–25 (which stations are on the National Rail network, and their journeys: entries and exits in the year to March); OurAirports (public domain, kept by volunteers); car parks and charging points from Overture Maps Foundation, release 2026-10-21.0, which gathers business listings from Meta, Microsoft, Foursquare and others: not an official register, so some will be missing, private or out of date. Distances are straight lines from the postcode's centre, not routes, and say nothing about how often anything runs. Stations opened since the end of ORR's year appear when ORR publishes the next one, each December; heritage railways are left out.

NearestDistance
Railway stationsColchester Town 1.0 million journeys in 2024–25550 m
Colchester 3.6 million journeys in 2024–251.3 km
Hythe (Essex) 433,000 journeys in 2024–252.0 km
Bus stops28 stops within 400 m, 52 within 800 m; nearest High Street Colchester City Centre30 m
Bus or coach stationColchester North Park-and-Ride Mile End4.1 km
Ferry terminalEast Mersea Ferry Landing12.5 km
Car parks10 within 800 m; nearest NCP Colchester High Street220 m
EV charging points2 within 1.6 km; nearest Roam Charging Station180 m
Airport with scheduled flightsLondon Southend Airport SEN38.2 km
Nearest large airportLondon Stansted Airport STN45.7 km

Local services

Sources: NHS Organisation Data Service, as at 31 October 2026: GP practices, community pharmacies and dental practices with an NHS contract, open now, each placed at the centre of its postcode; hospitals are NHS trust and Welsh health board sites named as hospitals, and may not have an emergency department. Police stations and cash machines from Overture Maps Foundation, release 2026-10-21.0, which gathers business listings: not an official register, so some will be missing or out of date. Distances are straight lines from the postcode's centre. Nothing here says whether a practice is taking new patients or a dentist new NHS patients.

NearestDistance
GP surgeries5 practices within 1.6 km; nearest Beacon House Ministries360 m
Pharmacies9 pharmacies within 1.6 km; nearest Boots210 m
NHS dentists16 practices within 1.6 km; nearest Dental Surgery190 m
HospitalOaks Hospital1.9 km
Police stationEssex Police360 m
Cash machines4 machines within 800 m; nearest Cashpoint® 27 High Street Lloyds Bank40 m

Parks and green space

Source: Ordnance Survey, OS Open Greenspace, April 2026: public parks and gardens, play spaces, playing fields and allotments, with their entrances. Distances are straight lines from the postcode's centre to a site's nearest entrance (or its edge where none is recorded), not walking routes; sizes are the area OS maps for each site. Some sites, such as school playing fields, may not be open to the public.

NearestDistance
Park or garden2 within 800 m; nearest Castle Park 19 ha270 m
Play area5 within 800 m; nearest Unnamed 4.2 ha370 m
Playing field2 within 800 m; nearest Unnamed 3.5 ha530 m
Allotments2 within 800 m; nearest Unnamed 4,060 m²680 m

Within 800 m: 2 parks and gardens, 36 hectares in all.

Landmarks

The nearest historic landmark is Colchester Town Hall, a listed building (Grade I), 0 m. 316 listed buildings are within 1.0 km, 12 of them Grade I and 29 of them Grade II*.

Historic places
NameWhat it isFrom the postcode's centre
Colchester Town HallListed building, Grade I0 m
Column and Street Light, Left of Entrance to Town HallListed building, Grade II*10 m
Column and Street Light, Right of Entrance to Town HallListed building, Grade II*20 m
3-5, West Stockwell StreetListed building, Grade II*70 m north-east
Town WallScheduled monument280 m north-east
Balkerne GateScheduled monument340 m west
Colchester Castle and the Temple of ClaudiusScheduled monument380 m north-east
Colchester Castle ParkRegistered park or garden, Grade II480 m north-east
Natural landmarks within 5.0 km
NameWhat it isFrom the postcode's centre
Bourne PondLake or reservoir1.7 km south-east
Blythe PondLake or reservoir1.9 km south-east
Friar's GroveWood2.1 km north-east
Ash PlantationWood2.1 km east
America HillHill3.9 km north
Hythe MarshesWetland3.9 km south-east

Sources: Historic England's registers through planning.data.gov.uk (MHCLG), and Cadw through DataMapWales (Welsh Government): World Heritage Sites within 10.0 km, battlefields within 5.0 km, registered parks and gardens within 3.0 km, scheduled monuments within 2.0 km, and Grade I and II* listed buildings within 1.0 km. Ordnance Survey, OS Open Names, October 2026: named hills, valleys, lakes, woods, wetlands and coast (it has no rivers). Distances are in a straight line to the middle of each site, and being on a register does not mean there is public access.

Air quality

Source: Defra, modelled background air pollution, annual means for 2024, for the 1 km square that holds the postcode's centre. These are background levels, away from the kerb: beside a busy road nitrogen dioxide in particular can be several times higher. UK limits are the legal annual limits for England and Wales; the World Health Organization's 2021 guidelines are much stricter, and most towns and cities are above them.

Annual means in µg/m³ (micrograms per cubic metre of air)
PollutantHereUK limitWHO guideline
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2)11.24010
Fine particles (PM2.5)7.3205
Particles (PM10)11.84015

All three are within the UK legal limits; nitrogen dioxide and PM2.5 are above the WHO guideline, as in most towns and cities.

Road and rail noise

Source: Defra, strategic noise mapping Round 4 (England), modelled for 2021 and published in December 2023, and its airport maps of the same round for the fifteen largest English airports, published in April 2026: Lden, the average sound level over a whole day with extra weight for the evening and night, on a 10 m grid, read at each address. These are models of traffic, not measurements; they leave out smaller airports and airfields, industry and neighbours, and a room at the back of a house is often much quieter than the front. The World Health Organization's guidelines are 53 dB for road traffic, 54 dB for railways and 45 dB for aircraft (below the lowest level shown here).

Noise figures are still being loaded.

People and work

Source: ONS Census 2021, taken on 21 March 2021, for the Output Area (a small census area of about 125 households) that this postcode is in: 208 residents in 135 households. The census was taken during a lockdown, so working from home is high and travel to work low compared with now. ONS swaps a few records between neighbouring areas and adds small amounts of noise to counts to protect privacy, so small differences mean little. Industry is not published for areas this small.

Who lives here

Around this postcodeEngland
Median age3040
Children under 157%17%
Aged 65 and over7%18%

Homes

Around this postcodeEngland
Owned (outright or with a mortgage)33%61%
Owned outright13%33%
Shared ownership0%1%
Social rented5%17%
Private rented62%21%

Work and commuting

Around this postcodeEngland
Adults (16 and over) in work73%57%
Unemployment (of those working or looking for work)6%6%
Retired (of adults)6%22%
Long-term sick or disabled (of adults)under 1%4%
Work mainly from home (of those in work)29%32%
Travel to work by car or van26%48%
By train, Underground, metro or tram4%4%
By any public transport, including bus17%8%
On foot or by bicycle26%10%
Work within 10 km of home (of those who travel to work)84%65%
Work 30 km or more away5%8%

Education and languages

Around this postcodeEngland
Degree or other higher qualification, Level 4+ (of adults)42%34%
No qualifications8%18%
Apprenticeship as highest qualification3%5%
Main language English (aged 3 and over)80%91%
Cannot speak English well or at all2%2%

Deprivation

The neighbourhood around this postcode is in decile 3 of 10 on the English Indices of Deprivation 2025, where 1 is the most deprived tenth of England's 33,755 neighbourhoods and 10 the least.

Source: English Indices of Deprivation 2025 (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government), by LSOA (about 1,500 people), through the ONS Postcode Directory. The index combines income, employment, health, education, crime, housing and living environment; it ranks areas against each other and does not describe any one household. Ranks in England and Wales are worked out separately and cannot be compared.