Home → About the data
How this directory is put together
Every listing shows where it came from and how well it's been checked. Here's what those labels mean.
The three states
Confirmed — checked against a primary register or the business's own current website. Primary registers means the Food Standards Agency's hygiene database, Ofsted's childcare register, Companies House, NHS service listings, or a chain's own store finder.
Unchecked — the listing came from a secondary directory and nobody has confirmed it. It's shown greyed out. Treat it as a lead rather than a fact.
No trace — we went looking and found nothing current either way. It may have closed, moved, or simply never had a web presence. We don't delete these, because absence of evidence isn't evidence of closure.
Why we don't just delete the doubtful ones
Because we nearly deleted a nursery that had been trading continuously for years. Its Ofsted registration showed as closed — but the setting had simply re-registered under a new company, with a new reference number. Delete on that signal and you erase a live business.
The same trap runs the other way. Several places in Horsforth are still listed as open on the big review and booking sites long after they shut. A directory that trusts those sends people to a door that isn't there.
Where the information comes from
- Food Standards Agency — hygiene ratings and inspection dates for every food business, refreshed from their open API.
- Ofsted — registration status, reference numbers and inspection dates for nurseries and schools.
- NHS service listings — GP surgeries, dentists, pharmacies and opticians.
- Companies House — whether a company is still active, and under what name.
- Booking platforms — a salon taking appointments today is trading today.
- Local press and the town council — openings, closures and events.
- Residents and business owners — the most valuable source of all. Tell us something.
Ofsted grades changed
From November 2025 Ofsted replaced single-word grades with report cards graded across six areas: Exceptional, Strong standard, Expected standard, Needs attention, or Urgent improvement, with safeguarding judged separately. Older inspections still carry the previous Outstanding / Good / Requires improvement / Inadequate grades. Listings say which applies.
Removed listings
7 records have been removed because there's hard evidence they closed. They're kept on a suppression list rather than simply deleted, so a stale entry in an upstream feed can't quietly put them back:
- Cafe Marinetti, 9–11 Town Street — Marked closed on Foursquare; confirmed locally. Still listed as trading on Sugarvine, CAMRA WhatPub and TripAdvisor.
- J P Teal, 2 Town Street — 2 Town Street is now Horsforth Smile Clinic, listed on NHS.uk
- Barclays, 68 Town Street — Barclays' own branch-closure feedback document + the restaurant now occupying the banking hall
- HSBC, 88 Town Street — HSBC's own branch list shows no Horsforth branch — the town is served by the hub at Horsforth Community Hub, with HSBC staff on Thursdays only
- Lloyds Bank, 38 Town Street — Cash Access UK hub rota shows Lloyds community bankers attending Mon–Tue. A bank staffing a shared hub is not also running a branch in the same town.
- Sunnybank Nursery, 6 Church Lane, LS18 5LA — Ofsted URN EY558116 and provider RP558115, both closed. Still listed as open on three comparison sites.
- Sunnybank Playden, 30 Town Street — Address now occupied by a restaurant. Came from an ageing street directory.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, tell us and it gets fixed. No login, no charge, no catch.