At DailyCity.co.uk, we believe that trustworthy city reporting rests on a simple principle: show your work. Every article we publish about London and major UK urban centres is built from a foundation of primary sources — council documents, public meeting minutes, site and venue visits, and direct interviews with officials, business leaders, residents and cultural organisers. Where we attend a council planning committee, walk a new housing development, visit a theatre preview or interview a local councillor, we state that experience in the article itself, giving readers a clear sense of the ground-level reporting behind every story. Our fact-checking and editorial standards are detailed in our fact-checking policy and editorial policy. We do not publish anonymous sources without senior editorial sign-off; every claim is traced back to a named speaker, a public record or a verified document. Rumours, speculation and unverified tips are always labelled as such, and never presented as fact.
Official and primary sources
We rely on the following official bodies and public repositories as the backbone of our city reporting. Wherever possible, we link directly to the source document so readers can verify the information themselves.
- GOV.UK — the UK government’s central portal for legislation, policy papers, departmental announcements, planning guidance and public consultations that affect cities.
- Transport for London — the official source for tube, bus, rail, road and cycling data, service changes, infrastructure projects and fare information across the capital.
- London Councils — the cross-borough membership organisation providing local government policy positions, joint statements and data on housing, social care, transport and regeneration.
- Office for National Statistics — the authoritative UK statistics body for population, employment, earnings, house prices, inflation and other economic indicators broken down by city and region.
- Police.uk — the public-facing crime mapping and neighbourhood policing platform, used for factual reporting on local crime trends and police operations.
- NHS — official health service data, waiting times, hospital performance, public health campaigns and service changes relevant to city residents.
Regulatory and standards bodies
We voluntarily adhere to the highest industry standards and are registered with the following bodies, whose codes and rulings guide our editorial practices.
- IPSO — Independent Press Standards Organisation — the independent regulator of the UK’s newspaper and magazine industry, which enforces the Editors’ Code of Practice on accuracy, privacy, harassment and discrimination.
- ICO — Information Commissioner’s Office — the UK’s independent authority for data protection, privacy and freedom of information, whose guidance we follow for handling personal data and public records requests.
- ASA — Advertising Standards Authority — the regulator for advertising in the UK, which oversees the labelling of sponsored content, affiliate links and commercial partnerships to ensure transparency.
- Companies House — the official register of UK company information, which we use to verify the legal status, ownership and financial filings of businesses we report on.
What we rely on day to day
Our daily reporting draws on a consistent set of source types, each verified before publication. Editors and correspondents use the following, with the clear rule that anything unverified is flagged as such.
- Official government documents — planning applications, committee reports, regulatory filings, business registers and statutory notices published by councils, devolved administrations and Whitehall departments.
- Company statements — press releases, investor briefings, annual reports and public filings from businesses operating in UK cities.
- Regulatory filings — submissions to the Competition and Markets Authority, Ofgem, Ofcom, the Financial Conduct Authority and other sector regulators that affect urban services and markets.
- Public meetings — council cabinet meetings, planning committees, transport board sessions, public consultations and parliamentary select committee hearings, attended or reviewed via live streams and official minutes.
- Press conferences — media briefings from mayors, council leaders, business groups, transport authorities and cultural institutions.
- Event organisers — official programmes, venue schedules, box-office data and artist or performer statements covering theatre, music, festivals, exhibitions and city events.
- Verified public social posts — statements from official accounts of public bodies, regulated companies, elected representatives and named industry experts, confirmed by cross-referencing with other sources.
- Public records — court judgments, land registry entries, freedom of information responses, company dissolution notices and charity filings.
- Direct interviews — telephone, video or in-person conversations with named sources, recorded or transcribed with permission, and attributed unless a source requests anonymity under our editorial policy.
- First-hand reporting — site visits, venue walk-throughs, route tests, product trials and attendance at public events, clearly noted in the article.
Rumour, social-media speculation or unverified tip-offs are always explicitly labelled as such and never used to form the basis of a news story. Our editorial policy requires that any claim based on an anonymous source must be corroborated by at least one other independent source before publication.
How to challenge our reporting
We take accuracy seriously and welcome corrections and challenges. If you believe an article contains a factual error, a misattribution or a misleading statement, please contact us. Our corrections policy sets out how we investigate and publicly update errors. For matters that go beyond a simple mistake — such as alleged bias, inaccuracy of interpretation or failure to meet our editorial standards — please follow our complaints procedure. You can also write directly to our fact-checking team at factcheck@dailycity.co.uk. Every formal request receives a response within five working days, and significant corrections are appended to the original article with a note explaining the change. We also encourage readers to use our Tip Us page to share documents, leads or firsthand accounts that may improve our reporting. Our commitment is to make DailyCity.co.uk a publication you can trust because we are transparent about how we know what we know.