You got it.

Snippets

Made out of the unsnippeted version...

The maths don't work out:
"... a staggeringly low ratio of content to the high number of domains, and the number of functioning (real) business site pages, to their own pages is so low, I can't see any "web design experience".

"... other, (genuine) local listings follow the fundamental web principle of assembling a collection of many choices in any link category, in an attempt to offer a useful "grouping" function, and sometimes a rating or opinions service. All town-index sites direct the visitor to a single shopping scheme the owner profits from."

Locically
If channelling visitors towards their income generating "buying & shipping" partner is the town-index main function, then obviously skill requirements for the job of "Local Operator" will never include those needed to set up a commercial site for any local small business. Any local small business is it's partner's competition. Anyone operating town-index sites, might get accused of gathering all local businesses under their wing, just to stifle (or even prevent) any local successful web ventures encroaching on commissions from the partner.

Informed Dave : "Sadly, the trust we will always associate with "christchurch.birkenhead.net" will enhance the business credibility of "birkenhead.net" for as long as it can be found in a search engine."
And mentioned the page (that linked to a site the real CMS were not aware of) was the ONLY "Good Causes" link for the entire population of Manchester.

The sheer volume of domains, many with "skeleton" sites, busted links, real sites inside their page frames, and those implied charity connections.
How come when you wrap quotes around the domain and search Google...
...there's so little actual content spread across (so far) 200 domains?