FixMyStreet
Citizen problem reporting platform — citizens report potholes, broken streetlights, and graffiti to their council. Used by thousands of UK councils.
Overview
260 demo reports • 150 updates • OpenStreetMap integration • Council admin dashboard • 20-minute walkthrough
Learning Artifact: This is a pre-deployed demonstration environment for learning and exploration, not a production-ready product.
FixMyStreet is mySociety’s open-source platform that lets citizens report local problems — potholes, broken streetlights, graffiti, fly-tipping — directly to the council responsible for fixing them. Used by thousands of UK councils, it’s one of the most successful civic technology platforms in the world.
This NDX:Try scenario deploys a fully working FixMyStreet instance with 260 seeded demo reports, 150 citizen updates, and a council admin dashboard — all running on AWS managed infrastructure.
What you’ll explore
Citizen experience
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Report a problem | Pin location on map, select category, describe issue |
| Track progress | Follow reports from submission through to resolution |
| View updates | See council responses and citizen comments |
| Browse reports | Explore all reports in an area with map pins |
| Local alerts | Subscribe to notifications for your area |
Council tools
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Reports dashboard | Filter by status, category, and location |
| Admin panel | Manage reports, users, and categories |
| Report management | Update status, assign, and respond |
| Category configuration | Customise report categories |
| Statistics | View reporting trends and performance |
Infrastructure
| Component | AWS Service |
|---|---|
| HTTPS & CDN | Amazon CloudFront |
| Load balancing | Application Load Balancer |
| Compute | AWS Fargate (3 containers) |
| Database | Aurora PostgreSQL with PostGIS |
| File storage | Amazon EFS |
Demo data
| Data | Volume |
|---|---|
| Reports | 260 across 5 categories |
| Updates | 150 citizen and council comments |
| Users | 15 citizen reporters |
| Categories | Potholes, Street Lighting, Graffiti, Fly-tipping, Broken Paving |
| Location | Camden, London |
Getting started
Once you select “Try this now” above, your session environment will begin deploying automatically.
1. Your environment deploys (~25 minutes)
2. Follow the walkthrough to find your credentials
3. Explore both the citizen and council views
Why this matters for local government
Citizen engagement
- Direct reporting — citizens report issues from their phone or computer
- Transparency — everyone can see what’s been reported and what’s being fixed
- Accountability — public tracking of council response times
- Accessibility — works on any device, no app download required
Council efficiency
- Centralised inbox — all reports in one place, categorised automatically
- Prioritisation — filter by category, status, and location
- Trend analysis — spot recurring problems and allocate resources
- Citizen communication — respond to reports without email overhead
Open source value
- No licensing fees — completely free to use (AGPL-3.0)
- Community maintained — mySociety + global contributor network
- Proven at scale — handling millions of reports across the UK
- Customisable — cobrand for your council’s identity
Cloud-native on AWS
- Managed infrastructure — no servers to maintain
- Auto-scaling — Aurora Serverless v2 scales to demand
- HTTPS everywhere — CloudFront provides secure access
- Geographic queries — PostGIS powers location-based features
About FixMyStreet
FixMyStreet was created by mySociety, a UK charity that builds digital tools for democracy and civic participation. Launched in 2007, it has become the standard platform for citizen problem reporting across the UK.
Impact
- Over 1 million problems reported
- Used by councils of all sizes
- Active community of contributors
- Deployed internationally
Technology
- Perl/Catalyst application framework
- PostgreSQL with PostGIS
- OpenStreetMap integration
- MapIt for council area lookups
Standards
- Mobile-responsive design
- Accessible interface
- Multi-language support (Welsh included)
- RESTful API for integrations
“FixMyStreet empowers citizens to take ownership of their local environment, while giving councils the tools to respond efficiently.”
— mySociety
How this was built
This scenario deploys FixMyStreet using AWS CDK with a custom Docker image extending the official fixmystreet/fixmystreet:stable image. The infrastructure includes Aurora PostgreSQL with PostGIS for geospatial data, an nginx sidecar for HTTP routing, and memcached for caching — all orchestrated by AWS Fargate.
View the source code on GitHub (opens in new tab)
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