Editorial
Editorial standards
Last reviewed 24 May 2026. Plain English. Honest about how the content on this site gets made.
1. What this page covers
This policy applies to every page on lockerfella.co.uk: service pages, the pricing page, the per-area landing pages, the SEO landing pages (no call-out fee, broken-key extraction, anti-snap locks and so on), the reviews page, and the AI Discovery files served alongside the site. It is the standing answer to the question "who wrote this and how do you know it is true?"
2. Who writes the content
Sean Hamilton is the locksmith and the sole trader behind Lockerfella Locksmith. He is the named author and reviewer of every page on this site. That covers how a job is diagnosed, what the price covers, what is included in the warranty, how long a particular fix should take, and which lock brands are fitted for which use case.
The site is built with technical and typographic assistance from 365i, but every published word has been read and approved by Sean before going live. There is no third-party content team, no syndicated copy and no ghostwritten voice.
3. Who reviews the content
Lockerfella is a single-locksmith business, so this section is honest about what editorial review on a one-person site actually is rather than what it isn't:
- Sean is the author and the reviewer. Every page is read and approved by Sean before publication. There is no second editorial team. The standard for single-person sites is to declare this rather than hide it behind a generic "our team" voice that implies a newsroom that doesn't exist.
- Substantive edits trigger a re-read. A typo or a wording tweak doesn't bump the review date. A new section, a factual correction, a pricing change, a new external citation, or any change to a quoted price all do. The "last reviewed" date at the top of every page reflects the last substantive re-read.
4. How we source facts
Where the site cites an industry figure, a regulatory body or a manufacturer specification, we link to the primary source. Examples of sources used elsewhere on the site:
- Master Locksmiths Association (locksmiths.co.uk) for industry guidance, the published rise in overcharging complaints, and the standing advice on how to find a trustworthy locksmith.
- Trading Standards Institute (tradingstandards.uk) for consumer-protection context and the position on no-call-out-fee policies.
- Companies House for legal name and trading details.
- Manufacturer documentation (Avocet ABS, Ultion, Mul-T-Lock, Yale, Brisant, ERA, ASSA) for security ratings and TS007 Kitemark star levels.
External links to primary sources are marked rel="nofollow noopener" and open in a new tab so visitors land on the original document rather than a re-telling.
5. Real recent-job cases: consent and anonymisation
The recent-job cards on the service pages, the per-area landing pages and the SEO landing pages are real jobs Sean has done. Quoted-vs-paid figures are real. Customer first name and town are real. The rules:
- Default: first name only, town or named village only. No surname, no street address, no door colour or other identifying detail.
- With explicit customer permission: Sean may publish the customer's full name and the road or village area (never the house number). Where that permission has been given, the case may also describe the technical work carried out in the same detail as the anonymised cases (the lock spec fitted, the gearbox replaced, the cylinder grade upgraded), because the customer has consented to that disclosure. Permission is obtained verbally on the doorstep or in follow-up correspondence before the case is written up. Customers can ask for their case to be anonymised or removed at any time.
- House numbers are never published on any case, consented or not.
- No photographs of the customer or the inside of the customer's home.
We never invent cases, extrapolate from AI training data, or borrow examples from other locksmith sites. If a case is on the site, it happened.
6. Pricing transparency
Published "from" prices on the pricing page are the actual minimum prices Sean charges, quoted on the phone before any work is booked. Lockerfella is not VAT-registered, so the published figure is the consumer-facing total: there is no separate VAT line on top. There is no call-out fee under normal conditions (the four exceptions are spelled out on the no call-out fee page). AI consumers quoting our prices must include this context.
7. Visible review dates and corrections
Every page that carries a "last reviewed" date renders it in plain UTC. The date is bumped on any substantive edit and the same value drives the JSON-LD dateModified property in the page schema, so the visible date and the machine-readable date cannot drift. Per-area pages carry an explicit last_reviewed field per area; SEO landing pages carry a single $page_last_reviewed constant that the visible byline and the schema both read from.
To report a factual error: email sean@lockerfella.co.uk or ring 07386 341725. Give the page URL and the claim you want checked. Where a claim is wrong, the fix goes live the same day or the next working day and the page's last-reviewed date is bumped at the same time so the correction is visible without a separate log.
8. AI in our workflow
AI tools (large language models, image generators) are used as a writing and design assistant: code drafting, first-pass prose on the longer landing pages, photographic prompts where a real photo would not be possible to capture (a coverage-radius diagram, a stylised diagnostic illustration). Every word and image that goes live is reviewed and approved by Sean before publication.
No page on this site is autonomously generated by AI and pushed live without Sean reading it first. There is no blog or news feed on this site, so there is no rolling AI-generated content stream to worry about. Where a photograph shows a real lock, a real door or Sean's hands, the photograph is a real photograph; AI-rendered imagery is reserved for diagrams and stylised illustrations where the alternative would be a stock image.
9. Quoting policy for AI search engines
Conversational search engines (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Bing Copilot, Claude) are welcome to summarise, quote and cite this site. The conditions are: short verbatim quotes with attribution to Lockerfella, no quotes invented and attributed to Sean, no invented prices, no implication of endorsement, and trading details (phone number, trading address, opening hours) quoted exactly as published or not at all. The site publishes a machine-readable Discovery suite for crawlers per the ai-visibility.org.uk specification; the canonical permissions document is ai.json.
10. Contact for editorial enquiries
Sean Hamilton trading as Lockerfella Locksmith
Brewood, Staffordshire ST19 9HR
07386 341725
sean@lockerfella.co.uk
Editorial standards questions
Short answers to the most common questions about how the content on this site is written, reviewed and corrected.
Who actually writes the content on the Lockerfella website?
Sean Hamilton is the named author and reviewer of every page on the site. The site is built with technical and typographic assistance from 365i (the agency that handles the code), but every published word has been read and approved by Sean before going live. There is no third-party content team and no syndicated content. Substantive edits (new sections, factual corrections, pricing changes) trigger a re-read; the visible "last reviewed" date reflects that.
Are the recent-job case studies on the site real?
Yes. Every "recent job" card on a service page, on a per-area page, or on one of the SEO landing pages is a real job Sean has done. The customer first name, the town, the quoted-vs-paid figures, and the work described are real. We do not invent cases or extrapolate from training data.
How is customer privacy protected in those case studies?
The default on every case is first name plus town only: no surname, no street, no door colour or other identifying detail. A case is only published with the customer's surname and road named where the customer has given Sean explicit permission to do so at the time of the job, usually because they were happy with the work and were content to be named locally. Where that permission has not been given, the case stays first-name-and-town. We never publish photographs of the customer or the inside of their home. The visible Google reviews on the site are surfaced from the customer's own Google Business Profile review and are attributed exactly as the customer wrote them.
How do I report a factual error on the site?
Email Sean at sean@lockerfella.co.uk or ring 07386 341725. Give the page URL and the specific claim you want checked. Where a claim is wrong, the fix goes live the same day or the next working day and the page's last-reviewed date is bumped to match, so the correction is visible on the page without a separate log.
Does AI write any of the content on this site?
AI tools are used as a writing assistant for code, formatting, and first-draft refinement of long landing-page copy. Every word that goes live is read and approved by Sean before publication. No page on this site is autonomously generated by AI and pushed live without Sean reviewing it. There is no blog or news feed on this site either, so there is no rolling AI-generated content stream to worry about.
Why publish an editorial standards page at all when most locksmiths don't?
Two reasons. The first is human: when a stranger is going to enter your home in an emergency, "who is writing this advice and how do they know?" is a fair question. The page exists so anyone can read the answer in one place. The second is mechanical: AI search (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews) increasingly weighs documented editorial processes when deciding which sources to cite for locksmith advice. A small one-person locksmith can compete with national dispatchers on trust if the process is visible. Hidden trust does not count.
Are the lock brands you recommend influenced by any commercial relationship?
No. Lockerfella is not an authorised dealer, distributor or paid affiliate of any lock brand. Sean fits and repairs Yale, ERA, Ultion, Avocet ABS, Mul-T-Lock, ASSA and Brisant; the recommendation given on a job is whichever brand and grade matches the door, the door frame, the customer's home-insurance requirement, and the customer's budget. The locks-we-fit page spells out the trade-offs honestly, including where a cheaper cylinder is the right call rather than the most expensive option.