About nearbyuk

Why we exist

Most questions about the place you live are not hard ones: whether the dentist opens on a Saturday, who fixes a boiler round here, where the recycling goes. The answers sit in a council PDF, three directory sites and a Facebook group. nearbyuk puts them in one place, town by town. Businesses are most of what people look up but not all of it, which is why this is an information site with a directory in it rather than a directory with a page about bins.

Our mission

To answer the everyday questions people have about the town they live in or are visiting, in one place, for free.

Who runs it

Ben Criddle, Editor. He decides what gets published, checks the data before a town goes live, and is accountable for anything wrong here. Where a figure comes from elsewhere, the source is named on the page and explained on the methodology page.

nearbyuk is a trading name of Fixr Systems Ltd, registered in England and Wales.

What makes us different

• We publish a town only once its listings are checked, which is why we cover Ely alone for now rather than claiming thousands.
• We take no commission and no booking fee. Nothing here is a paid ranking.
• We host no reviews. Ratings are Google's and are labelled as Google's.
• We say where every number comes from, and crime figures name the month they cover, because a crime statistic with no date is worse than none.
• We publish the unprofitable pages too: bins, crime, transport and fuel prices.

What we value

• Checked over comprehensive.
• Sourced over confident.
• Useful over profitable, where the two disagree.
• Plain over clever.

What nearbyuk is not

nearbyuk is not a lead generation service: it sells no enquiries and takes no cut of any job. It is not a review site and hosts no reviews of its own. It does not cover the whole country thinly: it adds one town at a time and publishes a town only once its listings have been checked. It is not affiliated with any council, police force or the businesses it lists.

Common questions

How is this different from a business directory?

A business directory lists businesses. nearbyuk answers questions about a town, and businesses are one of those questions, which is why crime, fuel prices and bins sit alongside the plumbers.

Who is it for, and what does it cost?

Anyone living in or visiting a town we cover. It is free, with no account and no paywall. It carries advertising and businesses can pay for an enhanced listing, which changes how a listing looks and never where it ranks. See how we are funded.

Where are you based, and what do you cover?

nearbyuk is operated by FIXR SYSTEMS LIMITED, company number 15889598, registered in England and Wales. Coverage is the United Kingdom, one town at a time: today 1,010 listings across 1 town, Ely.