News

The Canal & River Trust has chosen SocietyWorks’ FixMyStreet Pro solution as its new platform for the reporting of national waterway and towpath issues, complete with integration with its fault management system, SugarCRM, and Microsoft Entra ID for single sign-on.

The Canal & River Trust looks after 2,000 miles of canals and rivers across England and Wales. With such a vast network to maintain, reports from boaters and other members of the public about issues on, in and around canals, rivers and towpaths play a vital role in helping the charity to carry out its work. However, it’s not always easy for people to know when a problem is the Canal & River Trusts’ responsibility, and when it’s that of a local authority or other public body, with high potential for misreporting, delays and disengagement.

Understanding this, the Canal & River Trust wanted to provide an easy way for people to report problems accurately, and to have those reports along with any associated photos and other necessary details sent directly into its management system, so it chose to procure a dedicated version of FixMyStreet Pro.

From stuck lock mechanisms and damaged bridges to water contamination and overgrown vegetation, FixMyStreet Pro’s map-based technology will provide a simple and intuitive way for boaters and other users of waterways and towpaths to report problems and receive updates on the issue’s journey toward resolution.

As a networked service connected to the national FixMyStreet site, issues which are not the responsibility of the Canal & River Trust will be diverted based on the location and category selected within the report. Likewise, issues reported via FixMyStreet or one of our other council cobrand instances of FixMyStreet Pro which should go to the Canal & River Trust will be triaged, helping to improve the user experience and reduce avoidable and inaccurate contact for all parties.

Integrated with SugarCRM, updates will be sent automatically to and from FixMyStreet Pro. A second integration with Microsoft Entra ID will enable both staff and public users to use a single sign-on method when logging in.

A progressive web app, FixMyStreet Pro works on all devices and even allows for reports to be started while offline, which will be handy for reporting in areas where connectivity is unreliable.

Users will benefit from being able to see existing reports on the map, and will have potential duplicates suggested to them at the point of reporting, with the option to subscribe to the existing report. Asset layers provided by the Canal & River Trust will be applied to the map to help increase accuracy when reporting in certain categories, while reports in other categories will require extra information to be provided by the report-maker to help triage the report.

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “Extending the scope of FixMyStreet to incorporate reporting along waterways and towpaths is such an important and exciting development for members of the public and for authorities.

“We’re exceptionally pleased to be working with the Canal & River Trust on this project. Building on nearly twenty years of experience, the charity has recognised the reliable and transformative nature of FixMyStreet Pro, sharing in our belief that reporting problems to help care for our local communities should be as easy as possible.”

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Image: Miguel Saddi Vitorino on Pexels

As a provider of a front-end local authority waste portal, a regular requirement we receive from our WasteWorks clients is around updating pricing structures.

Creating the flexibility to accommodate the individual needs of different councils and their different charging models has been built into the structure of WasteWorks. 

In addition to handling standard annual pricing changes for services like green or bulky waste, take a look at some recent new examples of how WasteWorks has been supporting councils to navigate waste pricing changes in a way that keeps things simple for users.

Different pricing by customer type

For the London Borough of Bromley, the minimum charge for bulky waste collections now varies depending on whether the booking is for a domestic or commercial property.

Staff using the WasteWorks admin interface can access and adjust the pricing structure as needed. Alternatively, because WasteWorks is a hosted and managed service, we can also run a script to update pricing changes at set times (eg. at midnight at the start of a new month).

This ensures that front-end users are always shown the correct cost for their collection at the point of making a booking.

POPs collection charges

The London Borough of Sutton introduced separate pricing for bulky waste collections containing Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), such as upholstered furniture and sofas.

WasteWorks now supports differentiated charging based on whether POPs items are included in a booking, all of which can be managed by council staff from within the admin interface.

Premiums and discounts

Meanwhile, the London Borough of Bexley’s WasteWorks needs to accommodate pricing differences for weekend collections for bulky waste, including:

• Premium charges for Saturday collections
• Discounts for residents receiving state pensions or disability-related support
• A points-based pricing system where items are assigned values based on size and collection requirements

The platform accommodates these pricing rules while keeping the booking process straightforward for residents.

Container request charging

And finally, we have also implemented new charging models for container requests. Take the London Borough of Sutton’s WasteWorks as an example, which enables the council to display to residents:

• Premium food caddy options
• Charges based on container size changes
• Different pricing for upgrades and downgrades

These examples demonstrate the flexibility available when designing service-specific pricing structures.

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WasteWorks is designed to accommodate the individual business needs, operational processes and system configurations of different councils. Contact us to discuss how it could work for you.

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The next stage of our phased rollout of WasteWorks for the London Borough of Bexley has been completed, incorporating the ability for residents to securely access services related to clinical waste. 

Facilitated through integration with the Whitespace Work Software in-cab system, Bexley’s WasteWorks provides an intuitive self-service workflow for residents with an existing registration to clinical waste collections to report a problem with their collection. Where a registration does not exist, WasteWorks links to the council’s clinical waste enquiry form. 

For sharps boxes, any resident can book a collection for their property. WasteWorks collects information from the user regarding the box(es) included in the collection and whether any replacements are required. Bookings made via WasteWorks are reflected in the in-cab system, and a reference number is provided for the user, along with a confirmation email.

WasteWorks sends email reminders to users, and notifies users if a collection is not able to be completed, including a reason for why. 

Clinical waste services can be accessed from the homepage of WasteWorks, from which users can see information about all other waste collections associated with their property. For the purpose of privacy, only Bexley staff members are able to see if a property has a clinical waste or sharps box collection scheduled for a property’s address. 

The addition of clinical waste to Bexley’s WasteWorks service means that residents can now use it to access the following services:

• Check bin days on-demand;
• Track the status of collections;
• Add waste collection days to a smartphone or computer online calendar (they update automatically when changes are made);
• Report missed collections;
• Request a new rubbish or recycling bin;
• Request a replacement bin;
• Request the removal of a bin (without needing to request a new one);
• Subscribe to the garden waste collection service;
• Book a bulky waste collection;
• Book a sharps box collection.

A spokesperson from the London Borough of Bexley said:

“The London Borough of Bexley is proud to announce the successful implementation of the Clinical Waste service into WasteWorks, delivered in partnership with Society Works.

“This milestone marks a significant enhancement in the borough’s digital waste management capabilities, providing residents with a streamlined and user-friendly way to book sharps collections and manage scheduled clinical waste collections online.

“The project, delivered in close collaboration between SocietyWorks, Bexley’s Digital Team, and Environmental Services, has seen strong uptake since launch. Residents now benefit from a modernised booking system, with the ability to view and report on scheduled clinical waste collections, improving transparency and accessibility.”

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said:

“Bexley is the first of our WasteWorks clients to introduce clinical waste into the service and it is great to see the functionality go live. Working with the team at Bexley has been a genuine pleasure, keeping pace with their needs and ensuring each new phase of the WasteWorks project is exactly what they need to provide an intuitive service for residents.”

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For more information about WasteWorks, please get in touch.

Assisted collections are one of the many waste service areas covered by our front-end local authority waste portal WasteWorks.

Councils using the service can, for example, display the assisted collection status of a property address to staff or provide tools to manage collection eligibility.

We have recently introduced some developments to the assisted collection functionality of WasteWorks to expand this capability further. Take a look…

Self-service requests for assisted collections

Working with the London Borough of Bexley, we’ve introduced a complete assisted collection request workflow for residents using Bexley’s version of the service. 

Members of the public can now:

• Submit assisted collection requests online
• Provide reasons for the request
• Indicate whether the need is temporary or permanent
• Supply additional information to support the application

Once submitted, requests are sent to Bexley via email, but responses could also be sent into an integrated system if required.

From the WasteWorks admin interface, council staff can approve or decline requests, confirm collection details and durations (ie. whether this is a temporary or continual collection), and update collection information before the request is passed to back-office systems.

Staff management tools

Meanwhile, we’ve also been working on some enhancements to other staff-only, admin features.

For example, the London Borough of Merton’s WasteWorks service now enables staff users to access an assisted collection change request form from within the admin interface. 

The addition of this form means that, as well as being able to view the assisted collection status of a property address, they can also:

• Add or update collection notes
• Record access information
• Remove or amend assisted collection arrangements (such as location notes for crew members)

Form submissions are sent directly into the council’s integrated system.

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For more information about WasteWorks and how it could work for you, get in touch.

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Image: Christian Schröter on Pexels

Oxfordshire County Council has been using FixMyStreet Pro to handle reports of local street and highway issues since 2016. 

After letting the service embed for a couple of years, the council launched a volunteer highways reporting scheme as part of the Oxfordshire Together programme. The initiative was designed to increase community involvement in highways maintenance by enabling trained volunteers, known as “super users”, to identify and report qualifying highway defects through FixMyStreet.

Speaking about the scheme in June 2026 at one of our FixMyStreet Pro User Groups, Oxfordshire’s Senior System Officer, Antonia Pavalache, shared a case study on how using a community-centric and flexible tool like FixMyStreet Pro has enabled the council to more efficiently identify and address highways issues while fostering greater community ownership and engagement.

The challenge

Oxfordshire’s highways team recognised a growing desire among residents and councillors to become more involved in maintaining and improving their local areas. 

While the council already benefited from the sense of community and transparency created by displaying all existing reports publicly on the FixMyStreet map, Antonia explains how Oxfordshire wanted to go a step further and create a more structured approach that would:

• Improve visibility of local highway issues
• Harness residents’ knowledge of their communities
• Support highways maintenance teams with additional “on the ground” intelligence
• Strengthen relationships between the council and local communities
• Increase coverage across the county without significantly increasing operational resources

The council also wanted to better understand community priorities and ensure local concerns were reflected in maintenance activity.

The solution

Taking advantage of FixMyStreet Pro’s ability to create unlimited user accounts, with as many different permissions as is required, Oxfordshire put together a volunteer-led FixMyStreet Super User Scheme that enables trained community members to identify and report highways defects using FixMyStreet. 

Dedicated accounts, created for Oxfordshire,  give trained volunteers a slightly higher level of permissions when reporting problems through FixMyStreet. For example, they can include specific details surplus to those asked of a standard user, such as the exact depth of a pothole, which can help to fast-track more urgent problems.

The model creates a direct route from local observation through to the council’s maintenance processes, ensuring that issues identified by volunteers can be assessed and actioned efficiently. 

“Local knowledge does make a huge difference.”

Recruitment and training

Oxfordshire’s volunteers are primarily recruited through its local town and parish councils, helping the scheme reach individuals who are already active within their communities.

The onboarding process includes:

Initial training

• One-hour online training session
• Delivered with support from highway inspectors
• Covers defect identification, reporting requirements, and scheme scope
• Explains the difference between reportable safety defects and issues requiring immediate intervention

Practical support

• Follow-up site visits
• Hands-on guidance in identifying and reporting defects
• Ongoing access to a dedicated support team

Volunteers receive continued support throughout their participation, with regular communication channels available for questions and feedback.

How the scheme works

Oxfordshire asks its volunteer super users to focus on qualifying highway defects, including issues such as:

• Potholes
• Kerbing defects
• Vegetation-related issues
• Other predefined maintenance categories

To support accurate reporting, the reporting forms were tailored to capture additional information required by contractors, including:

• Defect dimensions
• Hazard details
• Road speed limits
• Traffic management considerations

Reports are reviewed before being passed into the council’s internal asset management system, provided by Causeway, and then forwarded to contractors for action.

The process is overseen by a dedicated volunteer support team that:

• Reviews report quality
• Maintains communication with volunteers
• Provides additional guidance where needed
• Identifies opportunities for process improvement

Results and impact

Since launching in 2019, Oxfordshire’s FixMyStreet Super User Scheme now has 230 active volunteers across the county, who submit around 1,700 defects annually.

Improved coverage

The super users provide regular monitoring of local areas, creating greater visibility of developing issues that may not be identified through scheduled inspections alone.

Examples include:

• Monitoring potholes that deteriorate between inspections
• Identifying pathway obstructions
• Highlighting defects that may require escalation
• Providing feedback on completed repairs

Community engagement

According to Antonia, the initiative has been well received by local communities, with volunteers reporting a strong sense of pride and ownership in helping improve their local areas, while councillors and residents gain greater visibility into the maintenance process.

The scheme has also strengthened communication between the council and communities by creating regular opportunities for dialogue and feedback, something that’s been especially useful while navigating internal restructures:

“Local knowledge does make a huge difference. For example, if there is a pathway obstruction, the inspector only does monthly inspections. There is no better way of identifying issues as they occur than somebody who is proactive in the community.” 

Operational benefits

The council benefits from:

• Increased local intelligence.
• Better understanding of community priorities.
• Earlier identification of defects.
• More effective use of inspector resources.
• Enhanced quality assurance through local monitoring.

Key success factors

Oxfordshire identified several factors as having contributed to the success of the programme:

• Clear role definitions and reporting boundaries
• Structured training delivered by highway professionals
• Dedicated volunteer support
• Tailored reporting workflows within FixMyStreet
• Strong communication between volunteers, inspectors and contractors
• Regular feedback and engagement opportunities

Safety and governance

The scheme operates within clearly defined safety parameters.

Volunteers are not expected to work on high-speed roads and are restricted to designated environments where participation can be managed safely.

The programme provides volunteers with meaningful involvement while ensuring responsibility for urgent and high-risk defects remains with qualified highways professionals.

Conclusion

Oxfordshire’s FixMyStreet Super User Scheme demonstrates how FixMyStreet Pro can be used as more than a public reporting tool.

By adapting the platform to support trained volunteers, the council created a structured process that extends their visibility of local issues, strengthens community engagement and improves the effectiveness of highways maintenance. 

Wishing a huge thank you to Antonia for talking to us about the scheme!

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If you’d like to learn more about FixMyStreet Pro, get in touch. 

As an organisation we talk a lot about how our civic tech products are able to flex around individual authorities’ needs. This is not something we say because it sounds good; it is a commitment from us.

Take our residential and commercial waste management portal WasteWorks as an example. 

A waste service that works for everyone

WasteWorks is a front-end SaaS product which integrates with in-cab systems and payment providers to simplify online access to all waste services associated with a property’s address, such as checking your bin days, ordering a new container or reporting a problem with a collection.

We built the core WasteWorks service in 2021 in collaboration with the London Borough of Bromley, who wanted to reduce the amount of unnecessary contact they were receiving about residential waste services caused by their existing processes. 

With that goal in mind, we equipped WasteWorks with the ability to not only let residents self-serve up-to-date information about their waste collections (including being able to download a live schedule to their device’s calendar), but also to ensure that reports of, for example, missed collections can only be made after the crew has completed their rounds.

Since launching for Bromley, WasteWorks has consistently achieved a 40% drop in unnecessary contact, and made the final of the LGC Awards 2022 in the Public/Private Partnership category. 

As more authorities have adopted the service, we have continued to add new functionality in alignment with the needs of our community of users, including:

• Green garden waste subscriptions – enabling residents to subscribe to and pay for green waste collections
• Bulky waste collection bookings – residents can book and pay for a one-off collection or subscribe to repeat collections if required
• Small item collections – take bookings for the collection of small items, such as batteries and textiles
• Assisted collection requests – let residents request help from your waste crew with their bin collection(s)
• New container payments – take payments for new containers when requested by residents
• Clinical waste collections – secure access to clinical waste services, such as booking a sharps box collection

The implementation of these features differs per council, adapting to their different rules, workflows, integrations and seasonal circumstances. 

For example, where an authority needs to understand what and how many containers a property already has we are able to add in extra questions to gather this information.

In other instances, where an authority experiences shortages of sacks, we are able to give council staff the ability to temporarily switch off orders and communicate transparently. 

Commercial waste

With WasteWorks’ core functionality tried and tested for a few years, the natural next step for the service was to branch out to incorporate another key waste service area for local authorities: commercial waste.

Working in consultation with councils and integrated waste suppliers, we’ve been developing WasteWorks’ commercial waste functionality to offer businesses the same simple and intuitive user experience as residents when accessing waste services associated with a business address.

From enabling users to assign one or multiple premises and container requirements to their account to making information for all quotes, invoices and waste transfer notes visible and easy to access for users, WasteWorks’ commercial waste offering is a comprehensive and, as always, versatile solution for councils.

The future

Each council using WasteWorks has made it their own, with slightly different configurations to make it exactly what they need.

We can facilitate this because our software is built with local authority differences in mind. We have learned from delivering our long-running street and environment reporting service FixMyStreet Pro across over 30 authorities that even when the goal is the same, the approach can differ. We embed that flexibility into all of our products.

In terms of new developments, we will continue to be led by our users (both residents and staff) following our citizen-centred design principles. User groups enable us to bring everyone together to discuss ideas, while customers have the opportunity to log suggestions through our helpdesk service at any time. 

Waste is a service area that will be subject to much change over the coming years in response to new regulations and legislation aimed at helping us respond to climate change.  

However requirements change, we will be there to support our local authority clients along the journey.

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If you’d like a conversation about transforming online access to residential or commercial waste services with scalable open source software, get in touch.

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Image: Abel Matthew via Pexels

We are pleased to be launching our new environmental health reporting service: EnviroWorks. It is a private and secure environmental health reporting and case management system, designed for the unique needs of environmental health teams.

In a series of blogs, we’ll explore how we got to this point and look in detail at the service. Let’s get started.

Understanding the need

As with any good user-centred design process, let’s first take a look back at our core users and the needs that brought us to create EnviroWorks.

Environmental health teams at our local authorities play a critical role in improving public health and protecting the environment. They deal with air quality management, noise pollution, food safety inspections, and housing standard enforcement. These are key issues affecting our health: noise is one of the leading environmental risks for physical and mental health and well-being. Bad odours can cause nausea, headaches and irritability. Poor air quality is linked to cancer, stroke, asthma, and heart disease. 

And environmental risks don’t impact everyone equally: minority ethnic groups, low income households, and those with inadequate housing conditions are more likely to be exposed to environmental health issues, such as poor air quality or excessive noise.

Whilst playing such a vital role, environmental health teams in some local authorities are struggling with capacity. As of 1 October 2023, on average 13% of environmental health posts in local councils were vacant. But reports from citizens are not going anywhere. Over just a three month period, local councils in London and the South East received over 90,000 and 40,000 noise complaints respectively. And that’s just noise! 

It is within this context that we received requests from our local authority clients and their environmental health teams, who wanted support managing their case load and a more user-friendly frontend reporting system.

Starting with noise

In 2020, Hackney Council came to us wanting to make the process of submitting noise reports a smoother one for residents and for council staff.  We worked intensively with Hackney’s Environmental Health team on a Discovery and Alpha project to understand the challenges they were facing, and to launch a brand new minimum viable case management solution for them.

This solution helped the team gather and manage information; helped them make decisions with all the information they needed; exposed useful data patterns; facilitated  sharing of information with reporters and relevant internal teams; and allowed them to retain information for compliance purposes. We called it NoiseWorks.

Building on our existing services

NoiseWorks has now been running successfully for five years. During that time, we have been seeing a growing need among our local authority clients for a service that covers broader environmental health reporting. 

To address this need, we wanted to create something that (like all our services) is accessible and easy to use for citizens, whilst being flexible enough to accommodate the unique needs of each council. With a user-friendly interface, comprehensive case management system, and private and secure back-end, EnviroWorks helps the public sector better serve citizens. 

EnviroWorks is a step on from NoiseWorks, with additional reporting categories, the ability to provide supporting documentation (such as recordings), and some other additional features. 

In an upcoming blog, we’ll show the tool in more detail… watch this space!

In the meantime, if you are interested in EnviroWorks, drop us a message and we’ll get back to you.

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Image: Joshua Brown on Pexels

A new API integration between FixMyStreet Pro and the DVLA Vehicle Enquiry Service (VES) enables reports of abandoned vehicles to be triaged according to whether the vehicle is taxed or not, helping authorities to reduce avoidable contact and process reports more efficiently.

Once enabled for an authority’s dedicated version of FixMyStreet Pro, the integration with the VES adds a new step into the reporting process for abandoned vehicles. Users are asked to provide the registration number (if known) of the vehicle they want to report, which then calls on the VES API to check the tax status of the vehicle in question.

Depending on the recipient authority’s criteria for accepting abandoned vehicle reports, FixMyStreet Pro can either share information with the user and disable the form, or include information from the VES about the vehicle before guiding the user through some additional questions to help support the report’s resolution.

Integrating with the VES for Bristol City Council

This new feature can be configured to match any authority’s individual approach to abandoned vehicles.

Bristol City Council, for example, only wants to receive abandoned vehicle reports for vehicles that are not taxed, whereas other authorities may still want to know about them, even if they may not be able to action a resolution.

Once a user has provided the vehicle’s registration number, Bristol City Council’s FixMyStreet Pro fetches information about the vehicle from the VES. If the vehicle is untaxed, the user will be able to continue with the report. The integration automatically pulls the vehicle’s details into the form to help speed up the reporting process and ensure information passed on to enforcement teams is accurate. 

On the other hand, if the vehicle is taxed the report form will be locked and the user will be advised of how else to seek support.

If the vehicle registration number is not known by the user, they can still make a report, but it will be logged as such and the user will need to manually input details about the vehicle.

In some cases, the location of the vehicle and/or the subcategory selected for the report dictates which authority is responsible for responding, regardless of tax status. Bristol City Council uses FixMyStreet Pro’s site messaging feature to inform users as appropriate and signpost to where the user can go to find more information and support.

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said:

“The DVLA VES integration is another great example of FixMyStreet Pro’s commitment to interoperability and to making the reporting of local problems as easy and effective as possible for both report-makers and the authorities receiving them.

“Abandoned vehicles can be a cause of real nuisance to members of the public, so helping to ensure that efforts to report them are not in vain, and that the correct information can be provided at the correct time is essential.” 

The DVLA VES API integration is available to all FixMyStreet Pro clients, and can be customised according to individual processes for responding to reports of abandoned vehicles. 

If you are an existing client and would like to discuss setting up an integration, please speak to your account manager. If you are not yet a client of FixMyStreet Pro but you’re interested in chatting about how it works, please get in touch.  

We have implemented a change to the way FixMyStreet Pro’s response templates work, enabling you to deactivate them if you need to.

FixMyStreet Pro’s response templates enable council staff with the appropriate permissions to create and edit pre-written responses to be sent to report-makers according to the category and status of a report. 

Alternatively, templates can be automatically assigned via integration with backend systems or Open311. This means that when FixMyStreet Pro pulls a state-changing update from your system(s), and there is a matching template set up within the integration, then that template will automatically be applied. 

Deactivating response templates

Following feedback from our council clients, we have pushed live a change giving staff with the appropriate permissions the ability to temporarily deactivate templates so that, if you need to stop using a template, you don’t have to lose it by deleting it.

This is particularly useful for when responses to reports in certain categories change throughout the year. For example, you may want to have different versions of templates for reports about grit bins, disabling any that aren’t relevant within the summer months.

Each template within the administration dashboard now has a new checkbox labelled ‘Inactive’. When checked, this template will not be used for incoming Open311 updates, nor will it be available for selection by staff when adding updates manually.

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For more information about FixMyStreet Pro, drop us a message and we’ll get back to you.

A new feature has been made available to councils using FixMyStreet Pro, enabling the display of notices containing ward-specific information only when a user drops a map pin within a certain area and category.

This is useful for communicating effectively with report-makers and managing expectations in situations where fault reports within a category may be handled differently depending on the ward in which the problem has been found.

For example, upon attempting to make a report about overgrown grass within a certain ward using Gloucester City Council’s FixMyStreet Pro, users are shown a message explaining how their report will be dealt with in this area.

Ward messaging can be applied to any categories via the administration dashboard. Councils wanting to implement this can open a ticket requesting which ward(s) and categories they want to display a message for, and the text they want to use.

Messaging can be added to FixMyStreet Pro sites in various different places and for different purposes, such as to share out of hours information, or to signpost to other services.

For more information about how FixMyStreet Pro works, get in touch.

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