IF YOU’RE fed up with those illegally parked cars on the corner of your street every day, or the rotting mattress on the empty plot of land opposite your house, help might just be at hand.
A new website, fixcyprus.com, is offering the public the chance to alert local authorities to recurrent problems in their neighbourhood. Officials from a number of municipalities are working work with fixcyprus.com and the website serves as a forum where the two groups can communicate. The website’s goal is to help local problems reach each municipality’s attention as quickly as possible.
“We try to keep it simple,” said Giorgos Mili, one of the websites operators. “We try to avoid vague or general complaints so that we can help the municipality.”
The website is not a forum for disgruntled people to censure the government, and there are clear guidelines as to what constitutes as a valid report.
The report can be about any technical damage that has occurred in public spaces including repeated illegal parking on pavements, parking lots with mobility difficulties, and large amounts of rubbish.
Since the website’s launch in early June it has had over 20,000 visitors and received around 120 posts. “There are about five to seven posts on average everyday,” said Meli .
“In the next month we expect these numbers to go higher”
Since its opening, the website has helped resolve around 10 cases. However, Mili says of equal importance is that approximately 30-40 per cent of the posts have been commented on by members of a municipality. “This is important,” Mili explained. “It is good that they know someone is following up.”
Fixcyprus.com was developed by a team of four IT researchers. Their experience and expertise has helped them to run the site both independently and efficiently. “We know a lot from commercial applications and change management… We develop and support [the website] independently. We have our own hosting services.”
The website is not-for-profit. “We don’t get money from this. That is not out goal,” Mili explained. “We don’t want advertising on our website because it is a service not for us but for the authorities.”
Fixcyprus.com has been inspired by a number of other websites with the same concept. Fixmystreet.com is a site where UK residents can “report view and discuss local problems.” There are similar websites for other countries.
“It is not a new idea,” said Mili. “It is working in other countries. It can reduce the costs of the municipality.”
When asked why the team had started the website Mili answered, “We did it to show it can be done.”
