How Durham County Council licenses dog boarders
Every one of the fourteen dog boarders, day cares and kennels listed for Durham and Chester-le-Street needs a council licence to operate: it is a legal requirement in England, not something a business can opt out of. All fourteen are licensed by the same council, but the way this page could check that licence, and what it can show about it, is worth explaining plainly.
Durham County Council
Durham County Council is the single unitary authority covering all seven areas on this page — Durham city, Chester-le-Street, Durham villages & Brandon, Consett, Stanley, Spennymoor & Crook and Ferryhill — and it licenses dog boarding, dog home boarding and dog day care alike, along with cat boarding where a business offers it. Its licensing area is actually much larger than these seven districts, since County Durham stretches well beyond this page to towns such as Bishop Auckland, Newton Aycliffe and Peterlee.
No star shown, and why
Durham County Council does not publish a searchable register of its own online. Every licence on this page was instead checked through animal-licensing.uk, a third-party mirror of the council's licensing data, which lists each business's licence type and links to its own operator page. In England, a council licence normally comes with a 1-to-5 star rating from a risk-based inspection, and the mirror does display a star for most of these businesses — but because it is a mirror rather than the council's own register, and this page has no way to confirm the figure is currently accurate, no star rating is shown for any business here. This is a gap in what this round of research could confirm, not a mark against any business: treat the licence itself as real, and the missing star as a question to put to the business or the council directly.
What the licence actually covers
A council licence in England is not a single blanket approval: it names the specific activity, such as dog boarding, dog home boarding, dog day care or cat boarding, and several businesses on this page hold more than one type where they offer more than one service, such as boarding both dogs and cats. In England a licence normally runs for one, two or three years depending on the star band a business is given at inspection, so ask the business directly how long its own current licence runs for and when it is due for renewal, rather than assuming a fixed term.
What to ask
Ask any of the fourteen businesses listed here for its current licence number and to see the certificate itself, and, if you want to check its inspection history, ask the council directly or look up the operator page on animal-licensing.uk yourself rather than relying on a star shown anywhere else. A licence can also cap how many dogs or cats a business may take at once, so ask whether your dates and your dog fit within what its licence allows.