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Safer Streets Beta Launches
In partnership with Directgov | innovate, the Home Office has today launched the beta version of its Safer Streets application.
Safer Streets allows residents of three pilot areas – Brighton & Hove, Luton, and Solihull – to tell their local councils and police teams (as well as other users of the service) where they feel safe or unsafe in their local areas.
This very clever app is built on Google Maps, and allows users to stick pins (green for safe, red for unsafe) into local maps, right down to the block level. They can even attach and upload photos to their pins to illustrate their concerns.
All Google Maps functions – such as zooming and panning and satellite and hybrid views – are supported. Maps also show the location of local services such as police and fire stations, hospitals, and community centres.
All submissions to the site (i.e. pin sticks) are subject to moderation.
The site does stress that is NOT there for the purpose of reporting crime – and that users should in such cases contact local police or dial 999 in an emergency.
The app can be found at:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/saferstreets/
Users are encouraged to provide feedback and suggestions by following the "Contact Us" link on the site.
Comments (5) :
That's a step in the right direction
That's a wonderful idea, but I can see how it can be open to mischief. I hope that besides the moderation of submitted information and pins, that you have to sign in with a username so the posts can be traceable.
Thanks Will
Thanks for the comments Will.
The Safer Streets beta will be available on the Innovate website for three months. The Home Office are using this time to evaulate the performance of the application before they decide whether to release it nationally. They have committed to considering all feeedback and I'll ensure your very valid point is strongly made.
Craig
A great idea that should help the police
I think this is a great idea, the local residents know thier areas really well and can help the police by identifying where there are problems. I think that we all need to stop blaming the police for crime problems and start getting involved, this is a great way that people can help the police and in turn make the streets a safer place for all us.
embed code please for local websites
hi - these sorts of services are not well suited to central government sites which have very low traffic for area-based issues
(how many people from each post code area visit direct gov or the home office per week to seek help on truly local issues - as opposed to paying their car tax, finding JC+ etc).
the real trick is to release embed code for a given postcode and scaling to allow (hyper)local sites, where people go for local stuff, to put the map and elicit comment.
indeed my own local SNP sergeant asked me for something like this for www.kingscrossenvironment.com only last week
cheers
w
Hyperlocal
Will,
I think the argument could be made that instead of letting the pendulum swing from central to hyper local, it should be considered for central, local and hyper-local deployment. I think that right now it can be said that Citizen focussed traffic is unevenly spread across those three areas at present.
Hyperlocal - as you well know - in the digital space is a more recent initiative, if a grass roots one, that doesn't likely have the traffic that Directgov might have, e.g. 15m+ visits a month.
But I'd argue that it goes even beyond central, local and hyperlocal, and should be an application that also has interfaces for sites like facebook/bebo/myspace, youth focussed sites, and other spaces where Citizens will naturally reside on the net.
Great work on hyperlocal, by the way!
Brian
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