About Ventnor Local
21st May 2025
Our story
The Ventnor Local directory was born out of frustration.
We are Richard and Vikki, residents of Ventnor and founders of Ventnor Local. In the summer months we rent out a room within our own home to holiday makers. To help guests maximise their stay, Vikki created a comprehensive guidebook to encourage guests to eat, drink, and shop in Ventnor.
However, we were surprised and frustrated by the lack of information for many of Ventnor's businesses. Basic info like opening hours, location, or even a description of what some of our local businesses actually do. Restaurants particularly - it was often impossible to find a menu. It was clear many Ventnor businesses were poorly represented in the online digital world and too many relied on Facebook alone, which lacks essential details that people need.
If only there was one website that listed every single shop, restaurant and business in Ventnor. Not just a boring directory, but one that is attractive and colourful, yet informative.
The seed was sown. We got to work and launched the directory in March 2024.
Ventnor Local is a not-for-profit company
We both love Ventnor and want our town and our community to prosper. If visitors and locals spend their money here, then the town benefits.
The directory needs to be comprehensive, to include the vast majority of Ventnor's businesses. Only then can the directory be truly useful for everyone using it.
We could not ask businesses for money, as many would probably say no, so we decided this would have to be an altruistic project. So the Ventnor Local directory is "free forever" for everyone listed.
Ventnor Local is a not-for-profit company and, on 9th April 2024, we were incorporated as a Community Interest Company: Ventnor Local C.I.C.
Neither of us receive income from Ventnor Local C.I.C, in any form, and the website set-up and running costs have come from our personal savings. We've enjoyed creating the directory and it really has become a labour of love to keep it up-to-date.
"Free forever", finance and charity
So, how can we be "free forever", yet at the same time have income to cover the costs so the directory can last long into the future?
We have included a 'donate' button for anyone who wishes to support what we are doing. Running costs are modest - about £250 per year - so it doesn't take much to keep it going.
Plus we have our own web design business - Ventnor Web Design - so hope to attract business as a result of creating Ventnor Local. Offering a website development service on a commercial basis means a proportion of the revenue can go back to Ventnor Local to ensure its future. Ventnor Web Design creates good looking, good value websites that are effective for businesses. We love to get under the skin of a business owner, to truly understand them and their customers.
We don't ever plan on taking an income from Ventnor Local, and therefore any surplus received will be given to local Ventnor-based charities, which is also one of our aims as a C.I.C.
Success on Google
As of May 2025, the directory has amassed over 800 listings and is growing all the time. Originally intended to be just a business directory, we have expanded it to include Ventnor's community groups and charities, as well as a things-to-do category.
Due to how comprehensive the directory has become, it now ranks highly with Google. On average, the directory gets 2,000 unique page views a week, from locals in and around Ventnor, elsewhere on the Isle of Wight, and from people based on the mainland and a few from abroad.
In general, any search that includes the word Ventnor, puts a Ventnor Local listing on Page One of Google.
Development plan & schedule
Initially we wanted to include all businesses that we could find in the PO38-1 postcode area before going live. However, coming from the landslip meeting on 29 February 2024 was a wave of energy focussed at promoting local businesses. So, we made the decision to go-live with what we had at the time and have worked hard and fast ever since to keep adding businesses.
There is quite a lot of work to create a page: we have to ensure we have consistently sized and appropriate images, we have to collect the data from wherever we can find it (existing websites, Facebook, Google, etc) then enter it into the directory.
We now have over 800 listings covering the PO38 area, and now include the villages of Niton, Whitwell and Wroxall. This will be as far as we go, geographically. Much further out, and people in those areas tend to go to Newport.
Succession planning
Being in our late 50s / early 60s, we naturally can't continue this forever. But we want Ventnor Local to keep going, beyond us.
Our thoughts about succession planning are to set up and mentor a young person to take over the operation of this website, together with the website business Ventnor Web Design. This will give them a kick start to building and running their own business, but on the condition that Ventnor Local is maintained.
These are our thoughts, ambitions - dreams even - but we put them here so you can understand us.
Reputation
We recognise that as well as the collective reputation raising the profile of all businesses in Ventnor, the opposite is also true, that reputation can be tarnished through association. Therefore, business listings will be denied or removed where there is activity that is seen by at least a material cohort of the general public to be undesirable. However, the interpretation of "undesirable" does not include religious or cultural beliefs, since we maintain a live-and-let-live approach.