About openLocal Explorer

openLocal Explorer is the research interface to openLocal, a comprehensive database of business rates, ratepayers and valuations for England and Wales. It turns published ratepayer and valuation lists into an intuitive and accessible working tool: search a property, ratepayer, or postcode; compose questions to surface relief gaps and outliers; and track a list of hereditaments as the data changes.

What you can do

• Search — find a hereditament, ratepayer, or postcode, drill into its full valuation and occupation history, and compare valuations side by side.
• Prospect — compose a question over the data, such as relief gaps, cohort outliers, or ratepayer changes, to surface business development opportunities. Save the question with an alert and it keeps matching as new data lands.
• Portfolio — paste or upload a list of reference identifiers, ratepayer names, or addresses. We match them to the rating lists and track changes from then on, with alerts when something moves.

The data

The Explorer reads the data assembled by openLocal Integrator, drawn from three primary sources:

• Valuation Office Agency (VOA) — rating list hereditaments, rateable values, descriptions, floor areas, and sub-valuation detail for every commercial property in England and Wales.
• Local billing authorities — ratepayer occupancy records, billing references, and business rates relief data, acquired under Freedom of Information.
• Office for National Statistics (ONS) — postcode lookups and the local authority, ward, and constituency geographies.

Our data is updated continuously, with history reaching back to 2016, so every valuation and occupation change is traceable to its source.

Who it is for

Researchers who need to work with business rates data at depth: local authority analysts, rating surveyors, commercial agents, and charity caseworkers. The Explorer is built to make complex questions approachable, without assuming you write code.

Built by Whythawk

openLocal Explorer is developed and operated by Whythawk, a data science consultancy specialising in open data infrastructure and research tools for the UK commercial property market.