Love Clean Streets – Tackling Environmental Crimes in 33 London Boroughs

Live in London*? Got a Windows Phone or an iPhone? Want to report an environmental problem in your borough for prompt action? You need to download the app for Love Clean Streets.

LoveCleanStreets is an award winning free online portal that helps people who live or work in any of London’s 33 local authorities to upload photographs of community problems that require action by the local authority. The system—pioneered by the London Borough of Lewisham—gives citizens the power to improve their immediate environment.

Users can submit reports using a free mobile phone application. They can also send a text or visit the lovecleanstreets.org Web portal. There they can see and search for all the reports in their area and share them through social networking sites, review progress, or subscribe to updates. The system can be fully integrated into local authority systems, ensuring that issues can be dealt with smoothly and allowing developers to create their own applications to submit and retrieve reports.

At a time when every penny counts, Love Clean Streets is a leading example of citizens being directly engaged in improving public services, seeing the difference it makes to their area and thinking more positively about the responsiveness of their local authority. The London Borough of Lewisham has seen graffiti complaints fall by 30 per cent and clean-up time improve by 87% as a result of the solution.

You can read the full story here, including the technical bit about the Microsoft technology (Bing Maps, Silverlight, .NET Framework) that Microsoft partner bbits used to develop and deliver the solution.

* FOOTNOTE: Although Love Clean Streets is currently only available across 33 London boroughs at the moment, many other local authorities nationwide and internationally are evaluating the innovative solution with a view to deploying it for the benefit of their citizens.

Posted by Ian