Blog posts about FixMyStreet Pro

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. 

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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Image: GeoJango Maps via Pexels

Dumfries and Galloway Council has chosen FixMyStreet Pro for its new digital reporting service for local street and highway-based faults. 

Development has been completed by SocietyWorks on a brand new, dedicated installation of FixMyStreet Pro for Dumfries and Galloway Council, complete with integration with its asset management system Causeway One Asset Management (formerly known as Alloy).

Branded to complement the Council’s existing online environment and optimised to work on any device, FixMyStreet Pro enables users to report problems across Dumfries and Galloway’s road network, such as potholes or issues with road signs and street lighting. 

Reports are sent directly into the asset management system to be picked up by the appropriate team, and updates, including photos of completed works taken by on-the-ground crews, are sent automatically back to report-makers to keep them informed of progress.

Existing reports are displayed on the map to help users see what has already been reported. Potential duplicates are suggested to users when a new report’s location and category match an existing report, with the user encouraged to subscribe to the existing one if they would like to track its progress.

Dumfries and Galloway’s FixMyStreet Pro service is also connected to the Scottish Road Works Register, allowing for the display of planned roadworks and utility works on the map to further help minimise avoidable contact. 

As with all instances of FixMyStreet Pro, reports that are not the responsibility of the Council are automatically diverted via the national FixMyStreet site. Meanwhile, the Council can display or request additional information for reports within certain categories to help triage reports faster and more efficiently.

Speaking about the launch of FixMyStreet Pro, Dumfries & Galloway’s Roads Maintenance Manager said:

“Implementing FixMyStreet Pro reflects our commitment to improving the customer experience for reporting road related issues across Dumfries and Galloway. We wanted a solution that makes it easier for residents to report problems, improves the accuracy of information we receive, and provides greater openness and transparency around how reports are managed. FixMyStreet Pro delivers exactly that.
 
“By integrating this userfriendly reporting tool with our internal workflows, we will improve the quality of information available to our teams, reduce duplication, and increase visibility of how reported defects are managed. Ultimately, FixMyStreet Pro will enhance the customer experience by making it easier and more intuitive to report defects, understand the repair process and receive updates enabling residents to track progress with greater confidence and transparency.” 

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said:

“Making reporting problems on our roads as simple and effective as possible has always been at the heart of FixMyStreet Pro. 

“We’re delighted to have Dumfries and Galloway Council put its trust in the software to help improve the way reports of local street and highway faults are handled, and look forward to welcoming the team there to our user groups to influence the future of the service.” 

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Find out more about FixMyStreet Pro.

At this time of year, councils and other public authorities with responsibility for maintaining local green spaces tend to see an increase in reports from members of the public about overgrown grass. 

In many, if not most cases, these reports draw attention to an area already included in a maintenance schedule. In other cases, it might be that reports about issues within a particular park or on a roadside verge are handled differently to others, whether that’s because of, for example, a “no mow” campaign or because the area is maintained by a third party. 

Therefore, one of the best things authorities can do to reduce unnecessary contact is to communicate upfront about scheduled works to reassure would-be report-makers that you’re already aware and remove the need to submit a report.

FixMyStreet Pro, our street, highway and environment fault reporting service, lets authorities do this in a few different ways. 

Displaying dates for scheduled works

Lincolnshire County Council makes use of an asset layer shared from its integrated system, Confirm, to highlight grass areas maintained by the Council and access the next scheduled maintenance date. 

When a map pin is placed within a highlighted area by a report-maker, and the ‘grass cutting’ category is selected, a message is displayed to the user to communicate the next scheduled date for grass cutting, and the form asks the user if this answers their query.

Displaying a message to users

Another option is to take a more general approach, like Northumberland County Council, which displays a message to users to explain that its grass cutting season has started later than usual, so users may not need to make their report.

The message appears when a user has selected the ‘grass cutting’ category and dropped a map pin within a highlighted area (facilitated through integration with the Causeway One asset management system). 

Similarly, Gloucester City Council shares a message with users to explain its approach to grass cutting, including some messaging that only appears in certain wards to indicate how grass cutting is handled differently within certain areas.

Meanwhile, Bromley Council uses FixMyStreet Pro’s messaging functionality to identify locations where grasses will not be cut as part of a campaign, and signposts to more information for users. 

During periods of high demand, you may also want to share category-specific messaging on the homepage of your FixMyStreet Pro site, to share information with all visitors to the site. 

Messages like this can be added and edited by council staff with the correct permissions from within the administration dashboard. 

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While this blog post focuses on communicating about grass cutting schedules through FixMyStreet Pro, the same functionality can be used to communicate about schedules for other maintenance, such as for drains or bins. 

If you’re an authority already using FixMyStreet Pro and would like some help communicating about maintenance schedules through your service, please open a ticket. 

If you’re not yet using FixMyStreet Pro and you’d like to find out how it could work for you, get in touch. 

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Image: Tom Van Dyck on Pexels

SocietyWorks has completed a project working in partnership with Transport for London (TfL) to digitise all of its highway licence application forms, using the same intuitive and user-friendly technology behind its existing highway fault reporting service, Streetcare, which is powered by FixMyStreet Pro.

The new forms, built using our new FixMyStreet Forms offering, replace Microsoft Word forms with an online interface through which applicants can submit applications for highway licences without needing to manually download, complete and send each application. 

Mapped to correspond to the individual process behind each licence, users are guided through a simple workflow which ensures all the required information is provided at the correct time, making it easier and faster for applicants to submit successful applications. 

Form submissions and any attachments are sent directly to TfL’s Asset Operations Licensing team, who benefit from the elimination of manual intervention and follow-ups where written responses were unclear. 

Where payment is required as part of a highway licence application, users are automatically redirected to Paybylink to complete their payment, before receiving a confirmation and summary of their application.

Speaking about the project, TfL’s Revenue & Licensing Manager said: 

“We approached SocietyWorks while looking for a way to modernise our online licence forms and payments. From the outset, the team were focused on finding the right solution for us, not just selling a product.

“They worked collaboratively throughout to turn complex paper processes into intuitive digital forms and their project management, responsiveness and genuine commitment to improving the customer journey has been outstanding.

“We’re now moving from a previously frustrating customer experience to what we believe will be one of the best.”

Angela Dixon, Managing Director at SocietyWorks, said:

“Over the last two decades, we have seen time and again how it is often the most simple digital transitions that create the most impactful transformation for authorities and the people they serve. 

“It has been wonderful to have TfL’s trust in supporting the digitisation of its online forms, giving users the same quality of online experience when applying for a highway licence as they have come to expect when reporting a problem on the highway.”

About FixMyStreet Forms

FixMyStreet Forms enables authorities using FixMyStreet Pro, our street, highway and environment fault reporting service, to digitise forms for related services, such as for highway licence applications. 

The functionality was originally designed for Buckinghamshire Council’s dedicated FixMyStreet Pro service to enable staff members to complete private forms relating to compensation claims for injury or damage sustained to vehicles or property on a highway.

FixMyStreet Forms is a lightweight version of our ApplyWorks solution, which is designed for authorities needing to handle more complex management of application forms, complete with a case management system. 

For more information about how we can support your application needs, send us a message and we’ll get back to you. 

While most commonly associated with the reporting of problems on streets and highways, FixMyStreet Pro can also be used by authorities to handle reports of problems in places a little more off the beaten track. 

An example of this can be found in the way Surrey County Council has incorporated fault reporting for countryside estates managed by the Council into its dedicated version of the service.

Corresponding to categories managed within its integrated asset management system, Confirm, Surrey’s FixMyStreet Pro allows users to choose from an updated list of categories which now includes issues relating to those on countryside estates.

Upon selecting one of the countryside estate categories, FixMyStreet Pro displays an asset layer (the yellow shape on the map) to help users visualise where reports can be made within the selected category.  

For certain categories, individual assets within an estate such as gates or signposts are also displayed (represented as small yellow dots) to further help users make precise and easy-to-triage reports. 

FixMyStreet Pro sends any reports made within Surrey’s countryside estate categories directly to the exact team that can respond. Updates made to reports within Confirm are sent back to report-makers to keep them informed of progress.

Where an issue is not the responsibility of the Council, or the issue is an emergency and should be made through a different channel, FixMyStreet Pro’s site messaging functionality can be used to divert or signpost.

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FixMyStreet Pro is available to a variety of public authorities, from all levels of councils to highways agencies to housing associations, and can be moulded to individual requirements. 

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

A new feature has been released for FixMyStreet giving users the option to start their reports with a photo, the data from which can be extracted to speed up the reporting process.

As well as making the reporting process quicker, this new functionality should also increase the accuracy of reports, removing the need for users who can’t or don’t want to report the problem at its location to remember exactly where it was at a later point in time.

Where a photo has been taken using a smartphone with geo-tagging enabled, FixMyStreet can now use the data stored in the uploaded photo to identify the location of the problem the user wants to report. 

Once uploaded, FixMyStreet will display a map with a pin dropped at the location identified. Users then have the option to either move the map pin if necessary, or continue with the report.

If a user does not have photo geo-tagging turned on, or the device they are using is not compatible with this functionality, they can still begin reports with a photo, but they will also need to identify the location of the problem either through GPS (if currently at the location) or using a postcode, street name or area.

Users can still report problems on FixMyStreet without using a photo if they can’t take one or don’t have one.

Photo-first reporting has been rolled out across the FixMyStreet website and app, as well as to all cobranded instances of FixMyStreet Pro.

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Got a question about photo-first reporting on FixMyStreet? Get in touch.

We were pleased to discover that FixMyStreet, mySociety’s long-running reporting service for local public realm faults, has been recognised in the Newspeak House Political Technology Awards. The awards are a year-long (hypothetical) grant making exercise, undertaken by the 2024–25 Fellows of Newspeak House’s Introduction to Political Technology programme.

Newspeak House, an independent residential college founded in 2015, brings together practitioners and researchers from across civil society and the public sector to explore how technology can strengthen democratic systems.

Within this landscape, FixMyStreet stood out. The 2024-25 cohort described it as “a civic reporting tool that allows residents to flag local infrastructure issues directly to the relevant authority,” praising its ability to support real-time public participation, improve transparency, and enhance everyday engagement with place.

In their reflections, they captured something that resonates strongly with our mission:

“FixMyStreet is a classic for a reason. It’s a clean, practical tool that opens a direct line between people and local government. But what struck me was the deeper shift it invites: it makes place-based maintenance visible, collective, and reportable.”

That shift — towards shared visibility and collective responsibility for the places we live — has always been at the heart of FixMyStreet. We’re grateful to the Newspeak House cohort for recognising its continued impact within the broader ecosystem of political and civic technology.

An open, map-based solution that’s as relevant now as it ever has been

When FixMyStreet first launched in 2007 it was in response to many councils not offering an easy-to-use online reporting service — if they offered one at all. Many citizens still prefer FixMyStreet because of its simplicity and because it removes the need for them to know which council is responsible for what problem.

These days, FixMyStreet acts as a national reporting platform, bringing all of the local authorities and government organisations together on one system, triaging reports between councils at all levels, highways agencies and housing associations.

Councils and other public authorities can interact with FixMyStreet in several different ways:

• Receive reports via email (for free) to whichever email address(es) you like for different issues;
• Set up your own (free!) integration using Open311 to have reports drop into a system of your choosing;
• We can build and maintain an integration for you (carries an annual fee);
• You can become a FixMyStreet Pro user. FixMyStreet Pro is a more advanced version of FixMyStreet, designed to eliminate the significant costs councils incur from duplicate reporting, unnecessary contact and failure demand.

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Want to understand more about FixMyStreet? Contact us for a chat.