What a week's list looks like for business owners

This is a real week for Chelmsford, exactly as a subscriber receives it: every company incorporated in the council that week, all of them, ranked A to E, with what each one is and how to reach the ones that are already up and running. Cut for business owners: who has just set up near you, and which of them will still be trading, with the columns you work from first. 41 companies; the ones worth your time are at the top.

Start at the top. Of the new companies we ranked A, 90% were still registered three years later, against 49% of all new companies, and each spent 2.3 times as long trading. Why a ranked lead is worth more

Start freeSee the pricesHow we compare

Every company incorporated in the council that week is here, whichever trade the list is cut for: the order and the columns change, the week does not. Company names and numbers are from the Companies House public register (OGL). Descriptions, bands and flags are Salenovo's own reading of the public evidence and can be wrong for an individual company; the method and its measured accuracy are on the method page.

How contacts arrive

Companies a week old rarely have a website yet, so a fresh week's list is mostly names, bands and types. The contact columns fill in as each company is re-checked at 30, 90 and 180 days and its website, mailbox or premises registration appears, and the row comes back to you when they do. These are Chelmsford companies formed earlier in the summer, with what the re-checks found; every website is the company's own and every mailbox is a generic one shown on it.

The other half: companies that changed

A new company is one moment to sell into. The other is when a company that already exists does something: a website that goes up, a kitchen registered with the council, a registered office that moves into premises, a charge registered because they have borrowed against an asset. Subscribers get these on a second sheet each week. This is what Chelmsford had in a fortnight.

Measured on 30,000 companies we followed for three years: 85% of those that registered a charge in their first six months went on to trade, against 35% of all new companies.

What each column means

Band

A to E, quintiles of the score among companies formed since the 2024 fee rise. On held-out companies band A went on to trade about 68% of the time and band E about 14%. A ranking, not a verdict: work the list from the top.

Fit

Whether a company of this kind is a customer for your trade, with the reason beside it, and the list ordered by it. It is a second axis, not a second band: the band says whether the company will trade at all and is the same for every subscriber. Nothing is left out, so a low-fit row is still your week, further down. The rules are written out for each trade, and two of the measures behind them come from what the register says companies turned into: how often a company like this ends up at a trade address or on a food register, and how often one has a charge registered against it.

Company

Name and registered number as on the Companies House register. The number is the key you match on in your own systems.

What it does

One plain-English line, read from the name, SIC codes and website together, because a third of SIC codes are generic or wrong. Marked lower-confidence where the evidence is thin.

Type

Operating business, property vehicle, holding or investment company, dormant or shelf company, or non-profit. Most buyers want operating businesses only; the others are shown so you can see why they are excluded.

Sector

The sector the company appears to be in, from the same reading, not the raw SIC section.

Formed via

Own or home address, an accountancy firm, or a mass-formation agent or virtual office. Companies formed through an accountant trade nearly twice as often as those at a home address; those at mass-formation addresses least of all.

Accountant

'Likely has accountant' when the registered office is an accountancy firm's address; 'probably none yet' for an own or home address; 'shared address: unknown' for serviced offices and other shared addresses.

Website

Only where a site has been fetched and judged to be this company's. 'Confirmed' means the company's registered number appears on the site. Parked pages, placeholders and other businesses with a similar name are excluded.

Email

The generic business mailbox shown on the company's own website (info@, hello@, enquiries@…), with the page it came from and the date. Never a personal mailbox. The domain is checked for a mail server.

Phone

Whether the number on the site is a landline (with its area), a mobile or a non-geographic number. A landline in the area is a stronger sign of premises.

What the site is built on

For a company with a website of its own, what we saw on the page: the platform it runs on (WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Shopify and the rest), whether the certificate is valid, whether there is a layout for phones, whether it sells online, takes bookings, has a contact form or lists a delivery platform, and which social accounts it links to. Facts about the page, from the same fetch that verifies the site is theirs. We never grade it: what the site needs is the buyer's judgement, not ours.

Borrowing

Whether a lender has taken security over something the company owns, from the Companies House charges register: who it is in favour of, the date, whether it is fixed or floating, and whether it is still outstanding. A charge is the strongest signal we measure, since 85% of the companies that registered one in their first six months went on to trade, against 35% overall. A private individual who lends is shown as "a private lender" and never named. It is a reason to call, never a credit assessment.

Premises clue

What kind of address it is, when the address says something: food premises on the council's register (the strongest sign, because a food business has to register at least 28 days before it opens), a trade or industrial address, a shop or high street address, an office or business centre, or a landline on the company's own website. Blank where the address says nothing either way, which is most home addresses.

Flood risk

The Environment Agency's long-term flood risk for the postcode: high where at least one address in it sits in an area with a 3.3% or greater chance of flooding in a year from rivers, the sea or surface water, then medium (1% to 3.3%), low (0.1% to 1%) and very low. It describes the area around the addresses, not the building, and the Environment Agency says it is not suitable for judging a single property, so treat it as a prompt to check. England only; the full note in the spreadsheet says how many addresses and whether groundwater flooding is possible.

Crime nearby

Property crime (burglary, criminal damage and arson, shoplifting, vehicle crime) recorded by the police in that neighbourhood over three months, rated very low to very high against every neighbourhood in the country. It is what was recorded, not what happened, and a town centre will always count more than a village. England, Wales and Northern Ireland; the spreadsheet gives the count and the months.

Premises

A registered food premises from the council's register, with the trading address, business type and hygiene status (often 'awaiting inspection', which means brand new). Other premises registers to follow.

What to do with it

1. Read what each one does and where it is registered: that is your new competition, at the week it appears.
2. Band A and B are the ones likely to become real businesses; the rest mostly never trade.
3. Nothing here is personal data: no director names and no home addresses.

Business-to-business email to a limited company or LLP is permitted under PECR without prior consent, provided you say who you are and offer an opt-out. Every row says where the address came from. No director names, no home addresses.