Frequently Asked Questions

What is FixMyStreet?
FixMyStreet is a site to help people report, view, or discuss local problems they’ve found to their local council by simply locating them on a map. It launched in early February 2007.
What sort of problems should I report with FixMyStreet?
FixMyStreet is primarily for reporting things which are broken or dirty or damaged or dumped, and need fixing, cleaning or clearing, such as:
  • Abandoned vehicles
  • Dog Fouling
  • Flyposting or graffiti
  • Flytipping or litter
  • Streetcleaning, such as broken glass in a cycle lane
  • Unlit lamposts
  • Potholes
What isn’t FixMyStreet for?
FixMyStreet is not a way of getting in touch with your council for all issues – please use FixMyStreet only for problems such as the above. We often route problem reports via cleansing services or highways and so using FixMyStreet for other matters may result in a delay in your report getting to the right department. You will need to contact your council directly for problems such as:
  • Anti-social behaviour
  • Any urgent or emergency problems
  • Noise pollution or barking dogs
  • Fires and smoke/smell pollution
  • Missing wheelie bins or recycling boxes or missed rubbish collections
  • Proposals for speed bumps/ CCTV/ pedestrian crossings/ new road layouts/ etc.
  • Complaining about your neighbours
  • Complaining about the council
  • Joy riding, drug taking, animal cruelty, or other criminal activity

Councils often have direct hotlines for these sorts of issues.

How do I use the site?
After entering a postcode or location, you are presented with a map of that area. You can view problems already reported in that area, or report ones of your own simply by clicking on the map at the location of the problem.
How are the problems solved?
They are reported to the relevant council by email. The council can then resolve the problem the way they normally would. Alternatively, you can discuss the problem on the website with others, and then together lobby the council to fix it, or fix it directly yourselves.
Is it free?
The site is free to use, yes. FixMyStreet is run by a registered charity, though, so if you want to make a contribution, please do.
Why do you only cover the countries of Great Britain?
We would love to cover Northern Ireland, but we have only been able to locate boundaries for Great Britain (from Ordnance Survey). If you know of a source for Northern Ireland council boundaries so that we can add them to the site, that'd be great.

Organisation Questions

Who built FixMyStreet?
This site was built by mySociety, in conjunction with the Young Foundation. mySociety is the project of a registered charity which has grown out of the community of volunteers who built sites like TheyWorkForYou.com. mySociety’s primary mission is to build Internet projects which give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives. Our first project was WriteToThem, where you can write to any of your elected representatives, for free. The charity is called UK Citizens Online Democracy and is charity number 1076346. mySociety can be contacted by email at hello@mysociety.org, or by post at mySociety, 483 Green Lanes, London, N13 4BS, UK.
Ministry of JusticeWho pays for it?
FixMyStreet was originally paid for via the Department for Constitutional Affairs Innovations Fund. It is now funded by a variety of means, from commercial work to donations.
Do you need any help with the project?
Yes, we can use help in all sorts of ways, technical or non-technical. Please see our Get Involved page.
I’d like a site like this for my own location/ where’s the "source code" to this site?
The software behind this site is open source, and available to you mainly under the GNU Affero GPL software license. You can download the source code and help us develop it. You’re welcome to use it in your own projects, although you must also make available the source code to any such projects. Fiksgatami is an example of our code being used in a Norwegian version of this site.
People build things, not organisations. Who actually built it?
Matthew Somerville and Francis Irving wrote the site, Chris Lightfoot wrote the tileserver and map cutter, Richard Pope created our pins, Deborah Kerr keeps things up-to-date and does user support, Ayesha Garrett designed our posters, and Tom Steinberg managed it all. Thanks also to Ordnance Survey (for the maps, UK postcodes, and UK addresses – data © Crown copyright, all rights reserved, Ministry of Justice 100037819 2008), Yahoo! for their BSD-licensed JavaScript libraries, the entire free software community (this particular project was brought to you by Perl, PostgreSQL, and the number 161.290) and Bytemark (who kindly host all our servers). Let us know if we’ve missed anyone.
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