Questions about town apps

Yes. The app carries your town’s name and colours, has its own listing in the App Store and Google Play, and uses your own photos. We do everything we can to make it feel local: even the background is a pattern of your town’s own landmarks. Our App is the company behind it.

Very little: we help each business set up its app, with its photos, its hours, and the features and look it chooses, such as a menu, collection orders or appointments. In the full product, each business keeps its own app up to date and posts its own updates to the town’s feed.

We set it up with you before launch: the BID, the council, the first businesses and a few keen residents post for real in the first week, alongside official notices, local news headlines and events.

Every post and comment has Report and Block from day one, and every post has a moderation status. Neighbours recommend places rather than rate them, which avoids review-bombing.

Yes. Our Bristol is a working example town app. Ask us for a demo and we will send you a link you can open on your own phone.

No. It sits between them: a place for residents that the BID owns, that local businesses can use directly, and that isn’t at the mercy of a social network’s feed. Your website and social pages can point people to it.

Yes. The app is fully customisable, with many features to choose from. You choose the neighbourhoods, the groups, the features that matter to your town and how they look, and we shape the app around them. Each business does the same for its own app.

A town is set up rather than built from scratch: its name and colours, its neighbourhoods and groups, and its first businesses and events. Each town also gets its own listing in the App Store and Google Play. We agree the plan and timings with you.

Each town’s app goes into the App Store and Google Play under the town’s own name when it launches. Today you can try Our Bristol, our working example, on your own phone: ask us for a demo.

We price each town app with the BID or council, depending on the size of the town and what the app needs to do. Get in touch and we will talk it through.

The full product will have resident accounts, a privacy notice for each town app, and the reporting and blocking tools the App Store and Google Play require. The demo holds no personal data.

It is built for phones, with labelled buttons, large tap targets, real text and the phone’s own share and calendar. A full accessibility audit is on our list before launch.

No. Your app lives inside your town’s app, so residents find it there. We help you set it up: your photos, your hours, and the features and look you choose.

No. Your app links to your website, and adds what a website can’t: a place in the town’s feed, on its map and on its high street, where residents already look.

Your app is customisable: you choose which features to use and how they look. There are nine templates to start from, each built around what that kind of business does, and if none fits, we build bespoke templates on request.

It opens a new route to your door. Residents find you on the town’s high street, its map and its feed, see that you are open, what’s on and today’s specials, and walk in. Neighbours recommend you to each other and follow you to see first when something is on.

That is how the full product will work: bookings, orders and requests come straight to your business, and you deal with your own customers directly.

Your town’s app is run by its Business Improvement District (BID) or council. If your town has one, ask them, or get in touch with us and we will tell you where things stand.