Planning Alerts tells you what's being built where you live

Sends you emails like this

• Covers nearly half the local authorities in the UK
• Has 2500+ users
• Sent nearly 40,000 alerts since launch
• 100% free service, volunteer built, no strings

Why build it?
Answer:
Arthur Dent Syndrome

The Queen (RIP), or what happens when no one's looking

photos from Urban75

What it looks like now :(

Email is passive, keep an eye on what's going on in your community with little effort

How it works

• Screen scrape local authority websites
• Send out as emails
• Data relicensed under Creative Commons
• Also available via API

API's are fun (and useful)

Simple right? No.

• Data gets published by councils, but no common format
• Needs different screen scrapers for each council
• Answer: mass decentralised data theft!

Lots of people writing little bits of code (any language welcome)

This works well, but still 80% of the effort

Think what we could do if we didn't need to beg and steal?

Not an isolated problem

• TheyWorkForYou.com
• FarmSubsidy.org
• UNDemocracy.com

Yay for Wansbeck!

Direct XML feed for planning data.
If they can, why not the rest of government?

end