Most charity shop finders online pull from a national database and leave it there. This one doesn't, and that's a deliberate choice rather than an oversight.
Before any of this was a directory, it was me, trying to clear out my own things, carrying heavy bags to a shop I'd looked up online — only to find it had closed, moved, or wasn't accepting donations that day. It's deflating hauling something all that way for nothing, when you were only trying to do the right thing with it, and it happens constantly, because so much of what's posted about these shops online simply isn't kept up to date.
It happened again while I was actually building this site. Three listings had been added based on a reasonable-sounding assumption about where they were — and when I actually walked the road to check, they weren't there. Not out of date by a year; just never confirmed properly in the first place. I took them down rather than leave a guess live. If it can happen to me while I'm specifically trying to fix this problem, it's clearly happening to everyone else who's just trying to get rid of a few bags of clothes.
Every shop on this directory has been visited in person — not looked up. That means checking current opening hours against what's posted online (they're often out of date), asking staff directly what they currently need more of and what they're currently turning away, and noting practical details like step-free access and nearby parking that donors actually plan around but national databases rarely capture.
Charity shop needs change week to week. A shop overflowing with clothing donations one month might be desperately short of it the next. A generic "we accept clothes, books, bric-a-brac" listing that never updates doesn't help anyone decide where to take a car full of things today. Getting that right requires someone actually going back, not a one-off data pull.
If something's changed since a visit, every listing has a "Suggest a change" option that goes straight to me, and updates are reflected within 24 hours — no login or dashboard required. That two-way check, visit plus easy correction, is what keeps this accurate longer than a database dump ever could.
Curious what the directory looks like in practice? Have a look, or read more about why this exists. Most of what I visit sits within a few hundred metres of each other on Chingford Mount specifically, which is worth knowing on its own terms too.