News

We live in an era in which many of us reach for our smartphones first to find the answer to a question like “when is my bin being collected?” or “how do I report a pothole?”. 

Local governments and other public sector organisations face the challenge of ensuring they keep up with expectations to provide easy and intuitive digital access to their services, and to do so in an accessible and cost-effective way. 

Dedicated, standalone apps (ie. those that run from their own codebase) are often chosen as the perfect solution, because everyone likes an app, right?

Well, actually no. According to research we carried out with YouGov in 2022, only 22% of citizens want to use an app they have to download to contact their local authority.

In our two decades of experience providing high-traffic digital services for members of the public, we believe that Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) present a more efficient and inclusive alternative.

What are PWAs?

PWAs are websites that have been designed with ‘app like’ qualities. 

They look and act like an app and they can be downloaded to a mobile’s home screen like an app, but they run from the same codebase as your website, removing barriers to access and enabling you to provide exactly the same experience to users across your online environment at no extra cost.

Why are PWAs a good choice for the public sector?

Accessibility for all

PWAs work on any device with a web browser, eliminating the need for users to download and install an app in order to access a service. This is particularly important in the public sector, where digital services must be accessible to everyone, regardless of their device type or storage limitations.

Cost-effective development and maintenance

Building and maintaining separate iOS and Android apps is expensive and resource-intensive. PWAs streamline development by using a single codebase that works across platforms, reducing costs and simplifying updates.

No app store barriers

Because PWAs run from the same codebase as your web service and can be saved to home screens directly instead of downloaded via an app store, you can ensure faster deployment and updates whenever you need to make a change. 

Increased visibility

Another benefit of using PWAs is that your service will appear in search engine results, making it easier for members of the public to find what they need when starting from an online search. 

Offline functionality and performance

PWAs permit offline capability to your website, by downloading a bit of JavaScript (called a service worker) to your device. This means people can, for example, start reports on-the-go without internet connection, and finish them later when back online. This is particularly beneficial for remote communities or frontline contractors who need to access services even in low-connectivity environments.

Security and compliance

Where a digital public service handles potentially sensitive data, PWAs leverage HTTPS protocols for secure communications, reducing risks associated with app store vulnerabilities while maintaining compliance with security standards.

The future of public sector digital services

By adopting PWAs, local governments and other public sector organisations can provide fast, reliable and cost-effective digital services to a broader audience. 

As governments strive for digital inclusivity and efficiency, PWAs offer a forward-thinking solution that prioritises accessibility, security and seamless user experiences.

For local governments and the wider public sector, embracing PWAs is a strategic move towards a more accessible and efficient public service landscape.

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All of SocietyWorks’ solutions are designed as PWAs . Get in touch to find out more. 

Parish and town councils wanting to keep track of reports made via FixMyStreet within their ward boundary can make use of FixMyStreet’s new parish-level email alerts and RSS feed. 

The FixMyStreet email alerts and RSS feed functionality enables users to subscribe to alerts for reports made within a certain area or that go to a certain destination, the latter of which only included upper tier authorities until recently. 

The new parish level alerts give local people and councillors the ability to stay informed of what’s happening in the community, subscribing to be notified of issues reported within their parish.

To set up an email or RSS alert feed, users can go to the ‘Local alerts’ page from the main menu, or click ‘Get updates of problems in this council’ from any ‘All reports’ page.

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “Creating a snapshot of communities is among the things FixMyStreet does best, and I am delighted that we are able to offer parishes better access to data on what’s happening within their boundary. 

“The new email alerts and RSS feed for parishes is only the start of a drive to make more of FixMyStreet’s functionality available to all levels of local authority.”

There are more developments underway to further extend the functionality of FixMyStreet to parish councils, building upon the existing functionality created for our unitary FixMyStreet Pro users to provide better shared reporting for devolved services. 

For more information about FixMyStreet or FixMyStreet Pro, please get in touch. 

A new integration has been completed between Bristol City Council’s installation of FixMyStreet Pro and their Alloy asset management system.

The integration enables reports relating to street cleansing issues made via Bristol’s FixMyStreet Pro service and those made via the national FixMyStreet site to be sent directly into Alloy, along with accurate map location data and supporting information.

With both systems connected via an API, any updates or status changes made by authorised council staff or contractors to street cleansing reports in Alloy can be sent back to report-makers, as well as to anyone subscribed to the report, helping to close the feedback loop and manage expectations. 

Likewise, any updates made to reports by users on FixMyStreet or Bristol’s FixMyStreet Pro are shared back to Alloy. 

Councillor Martin Fodor, Chair of the Environment and Sustainability Committee at Bristol City Council, said: “We’re delighted that this new integration will enable Bristol City Council to deliver a more comprehensive service for residents via FixMyStreet.

“Securing greater communication between FixMyStreet and council services will allow people to report street scene issues directly into our systems, meaning jobs are sent to the appropriate team quickly with a higher degree of accuracy, and with jobs not for the council making their way to the right organisation.

“These improvements to the council’s FixMyStreet integration and processes should result in residents seeing a difference made to the cleanliness of Bristol’s streets.”

In control of integrations

For non-street cleansing issues, there is an existing integration in place for Bristol, historically set-up and run by the council using an open standard endpoint which provides a two-way flow of such reports into and out of their Confirm highways asset management system. 

The addition of the Alloy integration for street cleansing issues is a great example of how councils can connect with FixMyStreet in different ways to best suit their needs and service areas – either by having us manage an integration for them, setting it up themselves, or, like Bristol, doing a bit of both!

Reports are triaged by FixMyStreet according to their location and category. 

In addition to triaging between Bristol’s own systems, the software also recognises when an issue is not the responsibility of the council and diverts reports accordingly, either by sending them directly to another FixMyStreet Pro-using authority (including National Highways) or by redirecting the user to the national FixMyStreet site.

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “Interoperability is a core element of our proposition to the public sector.

“We are really pleased to be supporting Bristol City Council as they take advantage of FixMyStreet Pro’s flexibility and integrate it with another of their systems to make managing street cleansing reports easier and more efficient.”

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Find out more about FixMyStreet Pro.

Our front-end designer Lucas Cumsille Montesinos highlights some of the work he’s been doing recently to make FixMyStreet and all integrated co-branded versions of the service running on FixMyStreet Pro more accessible.

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Over the past year we have been collaborating with users of FixMyStreet and FixMyStreet Pro to enhance the solution’s accessibility, making improvements to the user experience for people using assistive devices. 

One of our clients, Transport for London (TfL), shared an accessibility audit of their installation of FixMyStreet Pro with us. The document listed issues detailing information regarding the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and some improvements that could be applied.

Here are some of the points they shared with us:

• Description of the issue.
• Level success criteria using the WCAG standard: Level A (lowest), AA, and AAA (highest).
• A link to the page and location of the component where the issue can be found, along with instructions for replicating the problem if necessary.
• Status of the issue: Pass, Pass with comments, N/A, Fail.
• They also provided recommendations made by the auditor.

What improvements did we make?

The report from TfL allowed us to work on different areas of improvement, for example:

• Meaningful Sequence: We focused on making the order in which assistive devices present the information match the order in which the page is visually presented.
• Non-text Content: We hid purely decorative elements from screen readers, reducing unnecessary clutter for users when navigating the site.
• Info and Relationships: We improved and updated the role and attributes of some HTML elements so assistive devices can better understand the context and how to use those elements.
• Focus Order: When someone is tabbing through a website (using their keyboard instead of a mouse), everything should flow naturally and make sense. It’s making sure that when you hop from one thing to the next, the order matches how you’d understand the content – no jumping around to random spots that leave you scratching your head.

What did we learn?

• Include the WCAG conformance level (from A to AAA), where level A is the minimum. Ideally, you would like the website you are working on to comply with all Level AA success criteria. Using the conformance level makes it easier for you to prioritise which issues should be tackled first and which ones can be done later.
• Some issues won’t require a lot of time to fix. This can be your second factor when it comes to prioritising which improvements to make first. For example, easy fixes like adding aria-labels or increasing the contrast between the text and the background colour can be done in little time and greatly improves the user experience of your website.
• If you find an accessibility issue, always try to provide as much detail as possible, especially if someone else will be doing the work to fix it. The TfL document made solving the issues much faster and minimised any back-and-forth. Even sharing which browser you were using when experiencing the error can make a difference.
• One of the most interesting experiences was solving issues that didn’t seem like an issue (at the time), but once you deprive yourself of literally looking at the screen and using an assistive device, then the problem starts making sense. For example, the action of a button can make sense when you are looking at the screen and the elements that are surrounding it, but if you can’t see the context, the elements around the button, then the button might not make much sense. Adding further instructions like an aria-label that provide the context that the eyes are missing can help users understand where they are and what they can do much better.
• Finally, it is a great exercise to be more conscious when designing a website. Yes, a certain text, link, or button colour can look great, but can it be read easily? What about colourblind users? You can install plugins in your browser to help you see the page the way they would see it.

Our accessibility improvements were rolled out to the national FixMyStreet site and all co-branded FixMyStreet Pro sites. However it is worth noting that FixMyStreet Pro is designed to accommodate the branding and styling of each authority that uses it, which can mean that some of our accessible default settings are overridden. This is why we always recommend that authorities carry out an accessibility audit on their own services.

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Thanks for sharing, Lucas!

Read more about how we design accessible digital services, or browse more posts from the SocietyWorks team.

Part of our promise to our public sector customers is that we will integrate our solutions with any combination of back office systems. 

This commitment to facilitating interoperability extends to single sign-on (SSO) identity providers, such as Google Workspace or Microsoft Entra ID (formerly known as Azure Active Directory).

SSO integrations into our solutions enable councils and other public sector organisations to make it easier for authorised staff to log in using existing SSO credentials. 

Existing SSO accounts for residents can also be incorporated into the integration, meaning they only ever need to have one set of log-in details to access digital council services.

Integration with SSO also reduces the administration associated with setting up staff user accounts for larger teams. Existing account roles associated with an authority staff member’s SSO identity can be mapped to corresponding roles on, say, FixMyStreet Pro or WasteWorks, to automate the account creation and permission-setting process.

To connect with an SSO identity provider, we use an OpenID Connect-compliant endpoint.

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For customers wanting to discuss setting up an SSO integration into your installation of a SocietyWorks solution, please speak to your account manager. 

If you’re not yet a customer of SocietyWorks but you would like to find out more, you can request a demo with our team.

It’s National Pothole Day 2025, and Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, shares her thoughts on the cyclical dilemma faced by councils when dealing with potholes and why one-off injections of funding to fix them do not go far enough to help solve the problem. 

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Potholes are inevitable. We have a changing climate producing extreme weather events, which can make our roads more susceptible to damage. Car usage continues to exceed that of public transport, putting more pressure on the road network. SUVs are repeatedly topping the list of the UK’s best-selling cars, the weight of which contribute to the weakening of road surfaces.  

At the end of last year, the UK government announced a £1.6 billion injection of funding for councils to repair roads and fill potholes.

Extra funding for councils to repair potholes is a great thing, but as an annual industry report from the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) suggests, over 10 times as much money is estimated to now be needed to properly repair all of our roads…until they need fixing again. 

Having run a street and highway reporting service for over 17 years, working directly with councils and highways agencies, here at SocietyWorks we understand clearly that funding is only a small part of the pothole puzzle. 

Beyond one-off injections of funding, no matter the amount, councils need ongoing support, joined-up community engagement and wider systems thinking to ensure they do not run out of road in the battle against potholes.

Further than funding 

Being part of a civic tech (or pro-democracy tech, as we’ve recently been referring to it) charity, it is brilliant to see members of the public being encouraged to report potholes as part of the solution. 

There is plenty of research which explores citizen reporting and its impacts in relation to the fixing of local problems like potholes, the findings of which support our experience of running FixMyStreet and then FixMyStreet Pro. We have seen how much more likely people are to engage with councils if they can see that making the report makes a difference.

Given that, as the data from the AIA suggests, the current amount of funding available is nowhere near the amount needed to fix every pothole on our roads, what councils really need is to have the iterative processes and civic-centred technology in place to, at the very least, respond to all reports and communicate their ongoing strategies in order to build trust and mitigate disengagement. 

This is particularly important when considered in relation to the emergence of automated pothole detection systems on certain vehicles, which may skew data, and therefore intervention, to particular areas. 

Automation in processes can be incredibly effective; it is something we ourselves help councils to implement as part of the fault report management process to help close feedback loops and improve satisfaction, irrespective of the outcome of the report. 

As the use of automation and AI models accelerates when it comes to the actual reporting of problems, it is so important that the public sector does not lose sight of the value in providing robust and community-centric reporting services, ensuring parity in the reporting process and enabling positive acts of citizenship to inspire further engagement.

In the spirit of building trust in the gaps that funding alone cannot fill, we have also seen time and time again that when councils and other authorities work together efficiencies can be made that will make what funding is available stretch further. From reducing duplication to avoiding incorrectly-routed reports, everything that benefits councils and saves some money also benefits those who make reports in an effort to take care of their community. 

The long and winding road

The main problem about potholes that cannot be solved by funding for councils is that it is not getting to the root of the problem. Councils are responsible for maintaining our roads, but by no means are they solely responsible for the potholes themselves.

As well as funding for fixing potholes, we need funding for improving public transport and cycling infrastructure, among other initiatives that would help reduce the pressure on our road networks.

The problem is bigger than council funding, but councils take the brunt of public anger. 

As the people behind FixMyStreet, we are frequently asked by media outlets for data on the worst place for potholes, to which our response is always that we do not condone the simplistic use of report data in this way. It does not tell the full story, and it is unfair on councils who are fighting a battle that, without a lot more funding on an ongoing basis, they can never win.

Our focus is always to support councils to better serve citizens with technology that enables them to improve interactions and harness existing capabilities to problem-solve in a scalable way. 

I am proud of the work we do to support both councils and their residents in making it easier to report and respond to potholes and other local issues with cost-effective, integrated and open source software. 

I am also proud to work in partnership with organisations such as the Local Council Roads Innovation Group, who work tirelessly to educate, improve and bring together the industry. 

Whenever I am frustrated by the vicious cycles councils find themselves in with potholes, I must also remember that there are solutions to be found that can help councils navigate the terrain and make what funding is available to them stretch as far as possible.

If you have any thoughts to share about potholes or would like to discuss how we can make dealing with them smoother, please do reach out to me at angela@societyworks.org. 

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If you’re interested in hearing about what else the SocietyWorks team is interested in, working on or learning about, there are plenty more posts like this one on our blog.

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Image: Matt Hoffman on Unsplash

We recently added a new feature to FixMyStreet Pro enabling authorities in London using the solution to export data on reports made within their boundary of abandoned hire bikes and e-scooters, even though the reports themselves are sent directly to the responsible operators.

This new feature comes at the request of several of our London-based clients, who wanted to know how many reports are being made within this category to help them identify trends, keep track of service levels and monitor usage.

CSV files containing this data are now available to export on a daily basis. Exports can be accessed by staff with the appropriate permissions through the FixMyStreet Pro administration dashboard, or programmatic access can be established via the API for automatic importation into a business intelligence platform. 

Reporting abandoned hire bikes and e-scooters via FixMyStreet

The ‘Abandoned bikes/scooters’ category has been available to users in London on FixMyStreet and FixMyStreet Pro since 2023. 

Reports submitted under this category, whether made on the national FixMyStreet site or via an authority’s own branded FixMyStreet Pro service, are sent directly to the operator responsible for the abandoned bike or e-scooter, including Lime, HumanForest and Voi. 

Abandoned Santander Cycles can also be reported under this category and will be triaged directly to Transport for London.

As part of the reporting workflow, report-makers are asked to select which operator is responsible for the bike or e-scooter they need to report. 

Reports are then sent to the corresponding operator, containing all of the other useful information included as standard in a FixMyStreet report, such as the report-maker’s details, easting and northing, latitude and longitude and the nearest postcode to the pin placed on the map.

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said: “There is no doubt that the provision of hire bike and e-scooter schemes is an effective way for councils to reduce emissions and promote more active lifestyles, but when instances of abandonment occur they create nuisance and obstruct others from using roads safely.

“We hope the ability to easily access data on abandoned bikes and e-scooters reported via the FixMyStreet network enables councils in the capital to have better oversight of such schemes and can inform strategies to make them work well for everyone.”

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While the reporting of abandoned hire bikes and e-scooters is currently only available in London, we would love to be able to open up reporting of such issues to members of the public in other locations where hire schemes are in place. 

We are keen to hear from authorities and operators outside of London who share our appetite to make this happen. If that’s you, please send us a message and let’s see what we can do. 

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Image: Ben Wicks on Unsplash

Residents in the London Borough of Bexley can now use the Council’s dedicated version of our WasteWorks service to request new or replacement rubbish and recycling bins, and to request the removal of an existing bin.

This is the second phase of an ongoing transformation project we are undertaking in partnership with Bexley, the first of which completed earlier this year and included an API integration into Whitespace Work Software, the in-cab system used by the Council. 

The addition of rubbish and recycling bin maintenance to Bexley’s WasteWorks service means that residents can now use it to access the following services:

• Check bin days on-demand;
• 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).

Future phases of the project will introduce functionality for bulky and garden waste services, assisted collection requests and clinical waste collections.

Rob Flicker, Project Lead and Digital Manager at London Borough of Bexley, said: “The London Borough of Bexley have been busy working on the new Waste solution to improve our resident journey, providing an easy-to-use reporting tool and full integration with our Waste Management system.

“Bexley’s project team have launched the replacement bins service for Bexley residents as part of the new functionality within WasteWorks.

“The SocietyWorks team have delivered an excellent product that enables Bexley residents to order new bins and request for existing bins to be collected. The system offers an easy-to-use user interface, displays clear real-time status updates and dates for this service. 

“I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Society Works Team for getting the replacement bins feature Waste Works solution live on-time and on-budget.”

Reducing avoidable contact with WasteWorks

Through its connection to Whitespace Work Software, Bexley is able to manage resident expectations and reduce avoidable contact by displaying detailed information and service updates to users about the collections associated with their property. See an example below:

Where information surfaced from the in-cab system shows that there was a problem with the way the waste was presented, the ‘missed collection’ report feature is disabled and relevant information will be shared with the resident to explain why.

About WasteWorks

WasteWorks launched in 2021 and was co-designed with the London Borough of Bromley, where its intelligent features have helped the Council to achieve a 40% drop in avoidable customer contacts about waste services.

Shortlisted for the Public/Private Partnership Award at the LGC Awards 2022, WasteWorks is designed as a Progressive Web App (PWA). This means it functions beautifully on any device, and can be downloaded to mobile devices to be used as an app, without the need to maintain a separate app codebase.

Find out more about WasteWorks.

At SocietyWorks we’re proud to have a small but incredible team of people using their skills and experience to support our public sector clients and help our parent charity mySociety achieve its ambitious objectives. 

In this series of blog posts, we interview members of our team, including our board of directors, to find out more about them and why they chose SocietyWorks. 

Our first interview is with Anna Scott, one of our non-executive directors. 

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Anna Scott joined the SocietyWorks board of directors in June 2024. 

As a non-executive director Anna volunteers her time to provide strategic advice, drawing upon her extensive background working mostly within the third sector to help us build our brand and communicate effectively. 

Anna also sits on mySociety’s board as a trustee. 

We sat down with Anna recently to get to know her better and find out what brought her to SocietyWorks.

Do you want to start by telling us a bit about yourself and your career up to now?

“I’m Anna. I live in Frome in Somerset with my husband, our two-year-old son and our dog Cilla the King Charles Cavalier (also known as the family hot water bottle).

“My background is in global development and human rights, and more recently open data, digital transformation and user-centred design. I did a Master’s degree in human rights at UCL, and since then have worked mainly in content, communications and policy engagement roles.

“I started my career at the Centre for Global Development which is a big, not-for-profit think tank based in Washington DC focused on reducing poverty. My job there in a nutshell was to help start the European office, so I was involved in organising lots of events, preparing newsletters and generally building strong relationships with European and US stakeholders.

“After that I spent some time working as a content creator, first for The Guardian, where I covered global development, and then for The Mirror, where I was essentially responsible for making things go viral! It was a good lesson in what makes content engaging!

“Then I  joined the Open Data Institute (ODI), another non-profit focused on promoting open data, open innovation and data ethics. As Head of Content, I built the brand and content strategy. It was an amazing experience working across lots of content channels and formats, from podcasts to whitepapers, artworks to even a hand puppet shadow video. I worked closely with designers and the policy team, finding the best ways to communicate complex policy ideas, and curated the annual ODI Summit. 

“After that I led on content and communications for 360 Giving, and worked for varied clients, mainly also in the civic tech space, on content and brand strategy.”

It’s certainly a varied career! And what about now? What are you up to these days (aside from sitting on the SocietyWorks and mySociety boards, of course)?

“Since becoming a parent I’ve been working part-time. I’m currently involved in a digital transformation project at Defra, focusing on making forms more user friendly.

“I’m also involved in lots of content design community projects, namely a working group to help people to advocate for content design. I also co-lead the Defra Digital blog, commissioning posts from across the User Centred Design professions.”

What about outside of work? What do you do in your spare time?

“I don’t have a lot of spare time these days, but when I do I love to make music! 

“I’m a classically trained singer, but what I’m really enjoying at the moment is playing synths (the synthesiser). I love how accessible and expansive these little boxes can be. I’ve been performing at local Electronic Music Open Mics (EMOMs) – my stage name is Astral Synthesis.”

That’s very cool! You’ve clearly got lots going on, so how did we come onto your radar?

“During my time at the ODI I was very lucky to be engaged in discussions and content creation on lots of subjects around open data, data ethics and data infrastructure, in particular who owns data, who’s responsible for it and what policies create or steward it.

“At the time, mySociety was promoting its vision of having open, sustainable infrastructure for political data, and I became really interested in its tools and how they empowered citizens to engage more in democracy.

“We also ran some really great Friday lunchtime lectures at the ODI about various civic tech tools and mySociety came up quite a lot!

“I’ve been interested in civic tech and transparency ever since, so the opportunity to be part of the mySociety and SocietyWorks boards and engage more in this space was really exciting for me.”

What are you hoping to achieve as a member of the SocietyWorks board?

“Sitting across both SocietyWorks and mySociety, I want to use my brand and communications experience to help keep comms activities aligned and complementary across the group. There are two separate but connected brands here, and I’d love to help each develop their individual voice while also supporting each other’s objectives.

“I’m an advocate for accessibility and user-centred design, so I intend to be a champion for making sure our tools are accessible for users across society.

“I’ve also got a real passion for staff wellbeing, developed over years of leading teams. In fact, I’m actually training to be a psychotherapist, although it’s sort of on pause at the moment while I navigate life as a working parent. Those insights are still there, though, and I believe it’s really important to have someone with this perspective on a board of directors to keep wellbeing a priority.” 

We’re happy to have you! And what about you? What does it mean to you to be on the board of a not-for-profit organisation like SocietyWorks?

“It means a lot to me! I’ve spent most of my career working within the third sector and during that time I’ve reported to some really great boards. 

“I’ve seen firsthand what a difference it can make when you have a board of directors that is truly engaged, asks constructive and challenging questions and genuinely wants to help you succeed.

“Having been a fan of mySociety for a while, it’s a privilege to be here and to have the chance to help both the charity and SocietyWorks progress.” 

Thank you so much for talking to us, Anna!

A new version of the open source software upon which our FixMyStreet Pro solution runs has been released.

Version 6.0 of FixMyStreet includes new features such as:

• The ability to add a category filter to the reporting process, letting people search for a particular category. (This involves adding a category_filter.html template to your cobrand, similar to the one used on fixmystreet.com.)
• A new geolocation button to centre the map at your location.
• Adding the report ID reference to lists of reports in emails.
• We redirect to a confirmation page when creating a report, reducing the risk of Safari creating a duplicate report.
• Cobrands can have different map display times for open/closed/fixed reports.
• All uploaded images are now converted to JPEGs.
• Users can opt out of questionnaires.

Admin improvements

• We have improved the navigation in the admin, moving the main navigation to a sidebar. This is accompanied by minor display and performance improvements in various admin pages.
• Extra questions can now be multiple-choice using checkboxes, or a datetime picker, in addition to the existing options of text field, text area, and single value.
• You can make a phone number required for a particular category.
• On the dashboard, you can now filter by multiple categories, and we’ve fixed the CSV export to not ignore reports that had updates that were only unconfirmed or hidden.
• A long standing bug viewing a category when it has more than 1,000 history entries has been fixed.

Development improvements

• FixMyStreet has been around for a long time, and implemented its own way of sorting extra data on a per-report or update basis. Since then, PostgreSQL has added JSON support, and we have now moved the database tables to store data in this standard way.
• The site can now automatically spot a favicon.ico file present in the web/cobrands/<your-cobrand> directory, rather than having to add your own header template.
• Cobrands can provide (optionally per-category) custom distances for duplicate lookups.
• The daemon will deal with waiting reports in a random order.

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Version 6.0 of FixMyStreet is available to anyone running a site on the FixMyStreet platform, which includes: our own fixmystreet.com; the installations we host and manage for councils and other authorities; and the FixMyStreet instances run by others all over the world.

Developers and other technical-minded folk can view the full release notes on the FixMyStreet Platform website.

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Image: Tania Malréchauffé on Unsplash