Seychelles to embark on project to implement national addressing system | 01 July 2019

Mr Dias

Seychelles is embarking on a two-year project to implement a National Addressing System, a framework that provides for the naming or numbering of streets, numbering of properties, parcels of land and/or buildings to ease the identification and location of a parcel or dwelling on the ground.

The decision was approved by the cabinet of ministers on Wednesday June 26 and is expected to last two years, with the first phase commencing in September this year. During the first phase, information will be collected and all structures including residential properties, commercial buildings, hotels and flats among others, will be assigned a unique number, by which they can be easily identified and located. Following the first phase, scheduled for 12 months, the second phase will be focused on erecting the assigned code to the buildings.

Chief executive of Postal Services, Errol Dias, explained that all structures on Mahé, Praslin and La Digue will be assigned a number, with the exception of certain structures such as bus stops and stores.

“The number will be used by the Public Utilities Corporation (PUC), the police, fire services, health services, the department of planning, Seychelles Land Transport Authority (SLTA), post office, statistics etc. All structures will have the number so they will know where it is situated,” Mr Dias noted.

The unique identification number makes reference to two different things; firstly, the cadastral plot number and the closest road. The number has three parts, the first two of which are the district code, the second set of three numbers is the sub-district and the third number is the number of the structure (eg-SL-123-345).

“The number will be erected on each structure. We have a system called Geographic Information System (GIS) where all the numbers will be loaded into the GIS so the departments who have access to the GIS system will know where to locate specific addresses, although it is not limited to GIS, but also applies to maps. In each district, there are several sub-districts and each sub-district will be designated a sub-district code,” Mr Dias further stated.

Flat buildings will only be allocated one number for the entire building.