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Hackney Council publishes coronavirus support services online map

23/03/20

Mark Say Managing Editor

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Hackney support map
Image source: Hackney support map

Hackney Council has created an online map of local voluntary and support services to help people cope with the coronavirus outbreak.

It has placed the map on its website, showing organisations that are providing help in addition to their usual activities, and made the template available on GitHub for re-use by others.

It marks part of an apparent trend of local authorities taking steps to provide information and bring together sources of support in response to the virus. Calderdale Council provided an example last week when it unveiled an online volunteer support hub.

Susan McFarland Lyons, senior ICT delivery manager for Hackney, said on its HackIT blog that it had been able to turn the project around in 36 hours, using its leisure map prototype as a template and drawing on its Finding Support Services Near You project for the contacts with relevant organisations.

Initially the council is checking in with them regularly to ensure the map is up to date, but it is hoping to build an automated account creation workflow for them to provide updates.

The map’s look and feel has been based on Leaflet – an open source Javascript library for interactive maps – and the council’s HackIT pattern library.

Hackney has made the open source template available on GitHub for re-use.

Image from Hackney Council

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