Weymouth lost its Tourist Information Centre in 2021 and nothing replaced it. What filled the gap was a scatter of national directories that list attractions dismantled years ago, booking sites that take a slice of every room, and delivery apps that take a bigger slice of every meal. Weymouth Life is the answer to that: one site for the town, kept current, with nothing charged to anyone.

What it cost

A domain name and a small server, under a hundred pounds a year between them. No agency, no grant, no levy on anyone. The town's official destination site cost a great deal more than that and lists fewer shops than this one. We mention it because it matters: a site for the town does not need a budget, it needs somebody to keep it right.

What it covers

What's on today and this week, things to do, where to eat, places to stay, the independent shops, hair, beauty and local services, trades with checked reviews, nights out, heritage and history, the trails, parks and gardens, walks, the beach and the sea, live buses, trains and taxis, parking, getting to Weymouth, bins and recycling, doctors and dentists, accessible Weymouth, local jobs, offers, the noticeboard, local news, a print out of the week's events and a print out map, the places that have closed for good, and one search box over the lot. Every business in it can claim its own page and web address, free.

What free means here

Every business in Weymouth, Portland, Abbotsbury and Dorchester can be listed for nothing, shops and salons included. A guest house can take room bookings here, a chippy can take orders here, an organiser can put an event on the calendar, and none of them pay a penny, ever. Money goes straight from the customer to the business through the business's own payment page. Weymouth Life never holds it, never touches it and never takes a cut.

How things are checked

Every listing carries the source it came from and the date it was last looked at. Events are gathered from organisers' own pages and approved by a person before they appear. Anything not checked in ninety days flags itself. When something closes for good it goes on the gone and closed list rather than lingering as an attraction.

Live, not brochure

Buses, trains, tides, sea conditions, floods, power cuts and traffic come from the official open feeds and are refreshed every few minutes. If a feed is down the panel says so instead of showing yesterday's numbers.

Who runs it

Weymouth Life is run from Weymouth, by people who live here. It is hosted and designed with Kalchevo. Adverts, clearly labelled, are the only thing that pays for it.

Something wrong on the site? Want your business on it? Get in touch.