Methodology

Purpose-built and converted self-storage facilities that rent storage space to customers. We do not track bin stores, waste and skip operators, haulage, freight or logistics depots, cold storage, document archives, vehicle, caravan and boat compounds, lock-up garages or removals firms that do not rent storage units. Records of that kind are rejected when they are found, not hidden.

Sites are compiled from public sources and then checked against independent evidence of the site existing and operating. Only sites that pass that check appear publicly. Duplicate records for the same physical site are merged so each site is counted once. Verification runs again every week, so a site that closes or turns out to be something else drops out.

Self-storage planning and development records are matched to the local planning authority that received them. Public market pages show aggregate counts only: total records, approved, refused, awaiting a decision, and how many were submitted in the last 12 months. Site addresses, references, applicants, documents and our own development notes remain inside the Storage Compass platform.

A record shown as awaiting a decision is one with no decision recorded against it yet. Where no records are matched to an area, that means none have been matched — not that none exist.

A market is one local authority district, using the ONS code resolved onto each facility. That is the only boundary in our data that facilities, councils and planning records all share, so every figure on a market page describes the same area.

Seven wider areas are also published because that is how people describe those markets: London, Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, Merseyside, South Yorkshire and Tyne and Wear. Each of those pages lists the council areas it covers and links to them, and each of those council areas still has a page of its own. A site therefore appears on its council page and on the wider area page — the two are never added together.

A market is only published when it holds enough data to be useful — at least eight tracked facilities, or at least four with two identified operators. Areas below that bar are not published.

Operator counts reflect facilities currently linked to an identified company in the Storage Compass database. Many independent sites are not yet linked to a company record; those are reported as not yet identified rather than counted or guessed. Operator figures are therefore a floor, not a total.

Market pages do not publish a floorspace total. Some stored figures are published by the operator; others are measured from building footprints, and the two are not the same measurement, so adding them would produce a total that reads as fact but is not comparable. Floorspace is used only where its basis is stated for the individual site.

Asking prices are recorded per unit size, with the date observed. Public market pages do not currently show market pricing averages: the observation set is not yet broad or repeated enough across sites and unit sizes for an average to be meaningful, and promotional rates would distort it. Pricing intelligence inside the platform always shows what was observed, when, and on how many sites.

Facility and planning records are refreshed continuously, with verification and de-duplication runs every week. Market pages show the date of the most recent underlying record change, not the date you happen to load the page.

• Coverage is strong but not complete; new sites are still being identified.
• Operator identification is partial, as described above.
• Floorspace is known for some sites only, and some of it is estimated.
• Planning matching depends on what each authority publishes.
• Sites without a resolved council area are excluded from market pages.

If something here is wrong, tell us and we will check it. Report a correction. Operators can also claim their listing to keep their own details accurate.