For councils

What this is

Somebody has to look at the drains, and most of what stops one working sits on top of the grating: leaves, grit, a crisp packet, a fallen branch. This is on top of what the council does, never instead of it. Councils must keep road drainage working, and nothing recorded here reduces what your authority owes the people who live there.

What volunteers do

1. Tier 1

   Keep an eye on it

   Look at it now and then and save what you see. You never touch it.

2. Tier 2

   Keep it clear

   Brush leaves and rubbish off the top, standing on the pavement. Anyone can do this.

3. Tier 3

   Clear it out with a group

   Digging out what is underneath. Only trained groups working with the council do this.

What volunteers never do

• Never lift a grating.
• Never step into the carriageway.
• Never work on a road classified as fast or busy.
• Never touch anything below the grating.

Where a road cannot be matched to our data, or is classified as fast or busy, sweeping is switched off entirely and the drain becomes watch-only. That is enforced in the software rather than left to the volunteer's judgement.

What you get

• A record of which gullies residents report as blocked, with photographs and dates, before crews are dispatched.
• Leaves and litter kept off gratings between scheduled visits.
• Reports arriving through your existing reporting route rather than by telephone.

How reports reach you

Anything below the grating is the council's job. When a drain needs you, it is passed to your own reporting page or to FixMyStreet, and the reference is kept on the record here so nothing is reported twice.

What we need from you

Less than you might expect. Nothing here needs a budget, an integration, or a change to how your teams already work.

A named contact.

One person who is happy to be asked a question occasionally. Not a project, not a working group.

A look at where the line sits.

We will show you exactly what volunteers are and are not allowed to do, and you tell us if any of it is wrong for your area. If you want sweeping switched off on particular roads or road types, we do that in the software rather than asking volunteers to remember.

Your reporting route.

The web address residents should use when a drain needs you, or confirmation that you take reports through FixMyStreet. Anything below the grating goes there, with the reference kept on our record so nothing is reported twice.

Your gully data, if you have it.

An asset register, in any format, lets us put your real gullies on the map instead of waiting for residents to find them one at a time. If you do not have one, or cannot share it, the scheme still works.

Somebody to tell us if something is wrong.

An address we can escalate to, and that you can escalate to us.

That is the whole list. You are not asked to respond to reports any differently, to promise a response time, or to take on anything you are not already responsible for.

Insurance and liability

This is the first thing we will work through with you, because the answer partly depends on how your authority already treats volunteer activity on the highway.

What we can tell you now is how the scheme is built to keep the question small.

We do not recruit, train, direct or supervise anyone. People look after a drain outside their own home, on their own initiative, on the footway. Everything on top of the grating is the sort of sweeping a resident may already do outside their house.

The boundary is enforced in the software rather than left to a volunteer's judgement. Where a road cannot be matched to our data, or is classified as fast or busy, sweeping is switched off entirely and the drain becomes watch-only. Nobody lifts a grating. Nobody enters the carriageway. Neither can be recorded here.

Anything below the grating, or on a road that needs signing and traffic management, is a council job and is passed to you rather than attempted. Digging out a gully is Tier 3 work, and only happens through a trained group with its own insurance and a signed agreement with you.

Tell us what your authority requires and we will meet it or tell you we cannot.

Information governance

Residents' email addresses are never shared with your authority, and are never shown publicly. What you see is the drain record: where it is, what condition somebody reported, when, and any photograph.

We store only the outward half of a postcode, never a full one, and never a house number against a drain. The display name somebody chooses is not shown publicly anywhere.

Your admin access is limited to your own area. You cannot see records or people outside it.

Photographs are moderated before they appear publicly, and a photograph with a person in it is not approved.

The database and the photographs are held in Ireland, within the European Economic Area, on managed cloud hosting. We can give you the detail your information governance team needs, including a data processing agreement, when you ask.

Cost

There is no charge for the first authorities to take part.

We have not set pricing beyond that, and we would rather work it out with the people actually using it than guess in advance. What we will not do is present you with a bill you have not agreed. Nothing will ever be charged without being agreed with you in writing first.

Stopping or pausing

An authority can suspend the scheme in its area at any time. Volunteers in that area are told immediately, and the record stays intact.

The admin area already has a suspension control for this. Suspending releases stops the adoption clock in your area, so nobody loses a drain while the scheme is paused, and nothing that has been recorded is deleted.

Talk to us about your area