How to actually use ward data to win votes in the 2026 local elections

Most councillors and candidates go into the May elections with a gut feeling about their ward. They know the streets they canvass, the residents who show up to surgeries, the complaints that come through email. But they rarely have a full, data-backed picture of what is actually happening across their patch.

That is a problem because voters notice when you do not know about the planning application three streets away, the crime spike on the high road last month, or the pothole that has been reported four times and still has not been fixed.

The data exists. All of it is public. The issue is that it is spread across nine different websites that are all painful to use. This guide is about pulling it together and using it properly.

01Start with what residents actually complain about

Before you knock on a single door, you should know what people in your ward are already frustrated about. There are three public sources that tell you this directly.

Street issues (FixMyStreet)

FixMyStreet is where residents report things like potholes, fly-tipping, broken streetlights, graffiti, and overgrown hedges blocking pavements. Every report is public, timestamped, and mapped. If there are 15 open reports on the same road, that road is angry. You want to know that before you canvass there, not after a resident tells you about it on the doorstep.

Look for clusters. A handful of scattered reports means normal urban wear and tear. A cluster of reports on one street, especially if they have been open for weeks, means residents feel ignored. That is both a problem and an opportunity.

Crime data (police.uk)

The Home Office publishes monthly crime data at street level through police.uk. It is roughly two months behind (March data appears in May), but it is still the best public source for understanding where crime concentrates in your ward.

The categories that come up most in doorstep conversations are anti-social behaviour, vehicle crime, and burglary. Residents rarely mention "violence and sexual offences" directly but they do talk about feeling unsafe in specific places. Look at the data for those places so you can speak to it.

Planning applications

This is the one most candidates underestimate. Planning applications generate more resident anger per application than almost anything else. A single controversial extension or a new build that overlooks existing gardens can turn a quiet street into a campaign issue.

Every council publishes planning applications on their portal (most use a system called IDOX). Each application has a status, a case officer, a deadline for public comments, and a target decision date. If you know which applications in your ward are pending and which are controversial, you can bring it up on the doorstep before the resident brings it up to you.

Housing conditions (EPC data)

Energy Performance Certificates are public records that tell you the energy rating (A to G), estimated heating costs, insulation quality, and CO² emissions for every property that has been surveyed. For a councillor, this is fuel poverty data. Properties rated F or G are legally unfit to rent out under the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards. If your ward has clusters of F and G rated homes, those tenants are likely paying high energy bills in poorly insulated housing. That is a casework issue and a campaign issue.

02Build a picture of your ward street by street

Wards are not uniform. A ward in central London might have one street with serious anti-social behaviour and another, five minutes away, with no reported issues at all. If you treat the whole ward the same you miss what matters to each pocket of residents.

Break your ward into its postcode sectors and look at each one. What are the top reported issues? Where is crime concentrated? Are there planning applications near completion that residents are talking about?

Source	What it tells you	Where to find it
FixMyStreet	Resident-reported street issues, days open	fixmystreet.com
Council planning portal	Applications, decisions, comment deadlines	Your council’s IDOX portal
Police.uk (crime)	Monthly crime by street and category	police.uk
Police.uk (stop & search)	Stop and search records by location	police.uk
Food Standards Agency	Hygiene ratings for food businesses	ratings.food.gov.uk
DfT road accidents	Collision locations, severity, casualties	data.gov.uk
Land Registry	Sold prices, property type, tenure	landregistry.data.gov.uk
UK Parliament petitions	Open petitions with local signature counts	petition.parliament.uk
EPC Register	Energy ratings, heating costs, insulation	epc.opendatacommunities.org

The problem, obviously, is that checking nine different websites for every street in your ward takes forever. This is exactly why we built Friction Radar. It pulls all of these sources into one view, mapped and broken down by ward and street, so you can see everything in a few minutes instead of a few hours.

03Use the data on the doorstep

Data on its own does not win votes. How you use it in conversation is what matters.

The strongest thing you can do on the doorstep is demonstrate that you already know about a problem before the resident tells you. It shows you are proactive, not reactive.

Planning applications

“I saw there is a planning application for the property at the end of your road. The comment deadline is next Tuesday. Have you had a chance to look at it?” This immediately shows you are on top of local issues. Most residents have no idea comment deadlines exist, let alone when they are.

Crime patterns

“Vehicle crime has been an issue on this street over the last few months. I have been looking at the figures and I want to raise it with the local policing team.” This is more credible than a vague “I will tackle crime in the area” promise.

Street maintenance

“I can see there have been several reports about the pavement on this road. I am going to follow up with the council to find out why it has not been dealt with.” Residents do not expect miracles. They expect someone who is paying attention.

Housing conditions

“I have been looking at the energy data for this area and there are a number of properties with very poor ratings. If you are renting, your landlord is legally required to bring the property up to at least an E rating. I can help you check.” This is the kind of specific, actionable information that builds genuine trust.

04Prep for surgeries and committee meetings

Surgeries are where residents bring you their problems. The better prepared you are, the more useful you can be and the more likely they are to speak well of you to their neighbours.

Before a surgery, review the recent data for your ward. What planning applications are currently pending? What crime has been reported in the last month? Are there any street issues that have been open for a long time? If a resident walks in and says “nobody is doing anything about the state of Park Road”, you want to be able to say “I can see there are four open reports on Park Road, let me chase the council on those for you.”

05After the election: ongoing ward monitoring

Whether you win or lose on May 7th, the data does not stop being useful. Councillors who stay on top of their ward data between elections are the ones who build genuine reputations in their communities.

Set up a routine. Once a week, check what has changed in your ward. New planning applications. New crime reports. New street issues. It takes ten minutes if you have everything in one place, and it means you are never caught off guard when a resident emails or stops you in the street.