OurMap

Our Map is a guide to the independent, community-owned and not-for-profit spaces around you — cafés, bars, venues, galleries, shops, clubs and community spaces.

Drop a pin anywhere and it searches within the distance you choose, from 500 metres to 3 kilometres, digging past chains, ads or commercial spaces.

Every space is checked against the same rules. It must be somewhere the public can walk into — a café, a bar, a shop, or a club or venue where anyone can buy a ticket.

Then each place is researched — its own website, its company and charity records — to find out who actually owns it. Small charities, community-owned spaces, co-ops, social enterprises and grassroots venues come first in the list, then local independents, cheapest and nearest first. Big national organisations still appear, but a step below the small local ones, and chains are hidden unless you ask for them.

The research is shared: once one person has looked at an area, everyone after them gets the answers instantly. If something looks wrong, tap "is this information accurate?" on any place and it gets checked again from scratch.

Our Map is a not-for-profit. Every pound goes on keeping the map running — the servers, the place data and the ongoing research — rather than to shareholders. The suggested 60p a month covers exactly that.