Data and methodology

Babmap helps you plan a visit with a baby. Listings begin with a name, address and location. Baby facilities appear only when parent reports, an external source or the business supplies the information. “Not yet checked” means there is no reliable answer; it never means “no”.

Where places come from

Some places were selected from venue and public authority information. Many café and restaurant names, addresses and map coordinates come from the Food Standards Agency food business register. FSA registration does not establish baby facilities, step-free access, opening hours or whether a business is currently open. Food hygiene ratings are not Babmap ratings. Public sector information is used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

External information and map locations

Babmap records external facts with their source, link and import date. OpenStreetMap contributor tags remain clearly labelled as external listings. Business-confirmed facts have a separate provenance type. Parent reports never overwrite either source.

Map coordinates come from recorded venue, building, site, register or postcode sources. A pin may mark a building rather than the public entrance. Venue pages show the original listing source and date; check access and opening hours directly before travelling.

Parent observations

Parents can answer yes, no or not sure about practical details such as changing facilities, pram room and highchairs. Approved reports are shown separately from external and business information. If reports disagree, Babmap shows the mixed result rather than resolving it without evidence.

Ratings

Only approved parent ratings count. Overall baby-friendliness, pram access, baby changing, feeding friendliness and space and comfort each use a 0.5–5 scale in half-star steps. Every dimension is the direct arithmetic mean of the approved answers for that question, displayed to one decimal place. Calculations and sorting use the unrounded average. Optional questions that a parent skips are null and excluded from both the average and its rating count.

There is no composite 1–10 score, weighting, conversion, or hidden prior. A venue with no approved overall answers has no overall rating. Each dimension displays its own average and number of answers so thin evidence stays visible.

Review identity and editing

Each identity can have one active review per venue. An approved edit replaces that identity’s existing ratings and observations while preserving the stable review ID and original creation date. The previous approved version remains public while an edit awaits moderation.

Where the host supplies a stable signed-in user identifier, it is stored separately from the review. Otherwise Babmap uses an anonymous browser cookie as a temporary fallback. That fallback can be lost when cookies are cleared and cannot reliably connect the same person across devices.

Freshness

Each sourced attribute retains its date where available. Older information stays dated rather than being silently presented as freshly checked. Please check essential details with the venue and report corrections to babmap.uk@pm.me when something has changed.