Did you know that you can subscribe to FixMyStreet alerts within a chosen area? Like most mySociety sites*, FixMyStreet lets you subscribe to the content that is most meaningful to you, for free.

The feature was created with local residents in mind, but it’s proved useful for others with a stake in the area, such as councillors, MPs and community groups – especially as you can opt to receive reports within an electoral ward or a council area.

It just takes a couple of minutes to sign up for email alerts. You’ll get a deep understanding of the local area: what are the recurring issues, what concerns residents, and where are the trouble hotspots.

Here’s what to do.

Go to www.FixMyStreet.com and click on ‘local alerts‘ in the top bar, as indicated by the arrow in the image above.

On that page, input your postcode, or, if you have geolocation enabled, click ‘locate me automatically’.

As you can see in the image above, you have the option to subscribe to a geographic area, to the entire council area, or to a specific ward.

If you already use a ‘reader’ (eg Feedly or Newsvibe, to name a couple at random) then you may wish to use the RSS feeds. Feeds can also be used to put local content onto your own website, if you have one.

But if you would like to have FixMyStreet alerts delivered directly into your inbox, select the email alert option.

The final step is to check your email for our confirmation link. And then all you have to do is sit back and wait for the reports to roll into your inbox.

* Here’s a blog post explaining how you can subscribe to FixMyTransport reports, and this one explains how to get alerts from TheyWorkForYou when politicians mention your chosen words in Parliament.

Our Freedom of Information site WhatDoTheyKnow also provides alerts for any search term, public body, or request – as described at the foot of this post.