The whys and wherefores of listings.
Our Local Directories have been regularly distributed door to door for twenty years. Almost all of the listings are included at the suggestion of satisfied customers and users living locally. Since 2001 all our listings have been available online while we shall continue to distribute new printed editions every year. A summary of all our categories can be found here.
1. Is there a charge for getting listed?
Listings are free and included only at the discretion of the publishers. Listings of tradesmen, shops and other businesses, partnerships or sole traders are included on the basis that they have satisfied customers living locally. Voluntary organisations, council services and charities etc etc are assumed to have local customers.
2. How do I get listed?
Listings are generally made by third parties who have first hand experience of the product or service. The simplest way to submit a suggestion is online (see submit a suggestion at the top of the home page) or by using our traditional pink paper form.
3. Can I list myself?
Although we prefer suggestions to be made by satisfied customers, they can be made by the trader themselves. However, any submission should contain the name and contact details of a local customer, who we may contact to verify the suggestion.
4. How long does it take to get listed?
Submissions are added to our online database immediately, but they need to be checked and allocated to the appropriate area directories by hand, so this may take a day or so.
5. What kind of product, service or organisation do you list?
Anything that we consider will be useful to our neighbours. See here for the sorts of thing we are looking for.
6. Are there things you don’t list?
The main reasons for refusing to list suggestions (apart from the obviously bogus) are that they are not locally based. We know that our users much prefer to use services very local to them for all sorts of reasons.
We do not list products or services which we consider to be unfair or unethical. We don’t list pyramid selling schemes, premium rate phone lines or high-interest loans. (see our Ethical Policy for more details).
7. Are there any exceptions?
Where we identify need for a particular service, especially if they are quite specialist, we will list the nearest reliable ones we know. In some cases this has been hundreds of miles, although we would always seek to find good replacements locally.
8. My business is on the internet so isn’t everyone ‘local’ now?
No. We will only list internet based businesses if they are either locally-based or they provide a service unavailable locally.
9. Is there any difference between online listings and printed ones?
The listings are the same, however, because our printed directories do not have unlimited space we may have to limit the number of listings in popular categories.
Furthermore printed listings contain all the contact details, but clickable links from the listing to commercial websites are only provided for our advertisers.
10. Can I guarantee a listing in the printed editions?
Yes. By advertising in the printed editions, which actually pays for the printing and the administration of this website.