Cookie notice

Essential — always on

These are needed to deliver the service you asked for, so they don’t need your permission and can’t be switched off.

• Sign-in cookies and local storage: set only when you create an account or sign in, so the site remembers you between pages. They are removed when you sign out.
• Vote to Fix cookie (pm_voter): set only when you vote for a pothole. It holds a random ID so we can count one vote per person per pothole and let you remove your vote. It lasts 12 months, can’t be read by other sites or by scripts on the page, and isn’t used for anything else.
• Your cookie choice (pm_consent): remembers what you chose here so we don’t ask again every visit. It lasts 12 months and holds nothing but the choice itself and the date you made it.
• Basic site preferences: small values stored in your browser, for example the state of menus. These stay on your device and are not sent anywhere.

Analytics — off unless you turn it on

Nothing uses this today. There is no analytics tool on the site. The switch exists so that if we ever add one, it can only run for people who have already said yes.

Advertising — off unless you turn it on

If you turn this on, we load the Meta Pixel, which is Facebook and Instagram’s advertising tag. We run ads asking people to report potholes in their area, and the Pixel is how we tell which of those ads actually lead to a report. Without it we are paying for ads with no idea which ones work.

What Meta receives if you say yes:

• Your IP address, browser and the pages you visit on this site.
• Cookies Meta sets in your browser, which can link your visit to your Meta account.
• When you complete a report: the local authority area, the fact it came from the website, and which ad campaign brought you here.

What we never send, whatever your choice:

• Your name, email address or phone number.
• The exact address, latitude or longitude of a pothole.
• The photo you uploaded, or a link to it.
• Your account ID, or anything else that identifies you.

We also keep the campaign labels from the link you arrived on (the utm_ values and Meta’s click ID) for the length of your visit, so a report can be matched to the ad that prompted it. These are only stored on your device if you turn advertising on.

Changing your mind

You can change or withdraw your choice whenever you like, and saying no is as easy as saying yes. Nothing you turn off affects the map, reporting, voting or anything else on the site.

If you withdraw permission for advertising, we reload the page so the Pixel stops immediately and we delete the campaign labels from your device. Meta keeps whatever it already received; to ask them to delete it, use the settings in your Meta account.

We ask again every 12 months, and sooner if we add a new category or a new provider, so a choice you made long ago is never taken as permission for something new.

Third party content

Map tiles and road-name lookups come from OpenStreetMap, postcode lookups from postcodes.io, and the site’s fonts and map styling from Google Fonts and unpkg. Your browser contacts these services directly, which means they receive your IP address as part of each request. They do not set tracking cookies through our site.

Managing cookies in your browser

You can clear or block cookies in your browser settings at any time. Blocking them will stop you staying signed in, and without the Vote to Fix cookie we can’t remember that you have voted, but the public map and reporting will still work.

For everything else we do with personal data, see the privacy policy.