Get access to vital services and make the most of local amenities with our guide to your area

Sometimes it’s easy to miss what’s right under your nose.

While the web gives us a window on the wider world, it can also reveal much about your local community.

In this feature we’ll show you how to discover, access and benefit from the huge amount of information about your community that’s available online – all from the comfort of your own home.

As well as making day-to-day life a bit easier, the subject matter we’ll cover over the next few pages will give you the opportunity to get informed about and involved in the world immediately around you.

Local services
Let’s start with practical information about using local services. Tracking down contact information for specific departments at your local authority and getting in touch with them isn’t always as straightforward as we might like it to be.

Making contact needn’t, however, involve battling with frustrating telephone menu systems or holding the line until a member of staff can take a call. There’s plenty that can be arranged, booked or reported online and via email.

Got a big item such as a fridge that’s come to the end of its life? Arrange to have it collected by your local authority. Some councils charge a fee and others don’t, but details will be available on each authority’s website.

If you don’t know the website address of your local authority, or even if you’re not sure which local authority operates services in your area, track it down on the Directgov website using our step-by-step guide below ('Find your local authority's website'). Residents of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should access the site for their region.

Any time you want to take a shortcut to the correct department at your local authority, the Directgov website can help. The key is to get to grips with the ‘Search this site’ tool in the top right-hand corner of most pages on the website.

Say you want to report an abandoned car in your neighbourhood. Type the words ‘abandoned car’ into the text box and either click on Go or press the Return button on the keyboard.

The Abandoned cars link at the top of the results returned by the search takes you to a web page that provides you with more information. Follow the links and the same postcode-based search will give you direct access to the relevant department at your local authority.

Try other keyword searches, too, such as ‘fly tipping’ to report dumped waste. Meanwhile, to report loutish behaviour in your area, head for the relevant page of the Home Office website to find the anti-social behaviour co-ordinator in your area.

If you’ve contacted the local authority about a problem in your area but are unsatisfied with the response, take it up with your MP. Locate them on Parliament's Findyourmp site. We’ll look at making your voice heard locally in more detail in an upcoming online feature.

Local crime and education
The best way to keep tabs on what’s going on locally is to use the extensive resources and publicly available statistics online.

Start by typing the following web address into the address bar of your web browser: http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk.

Maintained by the Office for National Statistics, this website provides information on topics such as population, education, employment, housing and crime in your immediate neighbourhood.

Enter your postcode in the text box beneath the Neighbourhood Summary heading and click on Search to see what you can find out. Use the headings along the top of the next web page that appears to view data about different subject areas.

More detailed information about crime can be found on the websites of most regional police forces. Find which force covers your area on the UK police website.

London residents, for example, can use the interactive tools on the website for the Metropolitan Police to check reported crime figures broken down by borough.

But why stop at seeking out information? Have your say by completing the Met’s Safer Neighbourhoods online survey for a chance to improve or give feedback on policing in your area.

If you live in the West Midlands, the West Midlands Police website is packed with information about crime and related matters in your neighbourhood. Search by postcode, street, neighbourhood or by clicking on the interactive map and using the Have Your Say poll to voice an opinion about the local community and policing issues.

To have a more direct impact on improving safety on your street or local community, visit the Neighbourhood Watch website to see if a local group exists that you could join.

If not, there’s all the information you need to get started setting up a scheme in your area on the Home Office Crime Reduction website.

If your children or grandchildren are about to start school or are making the transition from primary to secondary education, you’ll want to know about the schools whose catchment area you fall within.

Your local authority’s website should provide a list or postcode search to find local schools, give details on how to apply for a place and list useful information, such as term dates across the borough or county.

Most will also give information relating to schools’ performance, such as GCSE and key stage exam results. For a detailed snapshot of a particular school, take a look at its most recent Ofsted report. Schools are listed alphabetically on this website.

Finger on the pulse
If you want to keep tabs on local news, visit the BBC’s Where I Live website and click on an area on the interactive map to see news stories specific to that location.

Not to be outdone by the Beeb, ITV has launched its own online local news service, ITV Local.

Use the clickable map on the home page to select the section of the site devoted to your local area. This will correspond with your ITV broadcast region.

As well as the usual fare of entertainment listings, including cinema, theatre and comedy, you’ll find local news stories, documentaries and short films.

What sets it apart from other local community-focused sites is the extent to which you can get involved.

Register for a free ITV local account and you’ll get a generous 5GB of space on the ITV local website, to which you can upload your own movie clips or photos of local events.

There are several ways to do this: upload up to five files at a time from your computer, upload from a mobile phone or capture directly from a webcam.

The size limit per file is 100MB and, as you’ll get a unique website address marking the online location of your clips, you can link to a blog or email it to friends you want to share your video with.

Even if you’re not a budding filmmaker, you can watch other users’ clips of interesting events in the Yournews or Grassroots Sport sections.

The latter is packed with footage of those minor league and non-league sports matches that never usually make it to the screen. You can leave comments about clips and photos, too.

Voice of the people
While big media hitters such as the BBC and ITV are making strides in promoting local and community news, the efforts of individuals and independent bloggers (people who publish online journals – ‘blog’ is short for ‘web log’) should not be underrated.

Take the following two examples. Read the archived posts on The Edinburgh Blog to find all you need to track down the tastiest takeaway along with reviews of recent concerts.

The Brockley Central blog is another great example of how a website started by a locally minded individual can turn into a virtual community centre, with debate on improvements to transport links nestling alongside reports of new store openings.

Use Google to track down community blogs and websites in your area and don’t forget that local community centres, history and social groups, amateur dramatic societies and gardening clubs may have websites bursting with news of local events.

Check out the websites of local museums, too, which will give details of talks and events, particularly educational events and activities for young people in school holidays. Head for your county council website for a list of all the museums in the region.

Instead of typing in, for example, ‘drama society’ and wading through page after page of irrelevant links, start your search at www.google.co.uk, click on the radio button marked ‘pages from the UK’ and add a plus sign followed by the name of your town, like this example: ‘drama societies + “Sutton Coldfield”.

If you can’t find any local websites or blogs that you find interesting, the chances are others will feel the same way so why not set up your own?

Register for a free Blogger account to publish your own thoughts on community issues or aim a bit higher and set up a website for your local community yourself. See 'Build a community website' below for more information.

Alternatively if you just want to chat to other residents in the local area, visit the BBC Message Boards website and click on the Local link on the left-hand side of the page. Select an area from those listed on the next page and find out what the people around you have to say about local matters, politics and world news.

You need to sign up as a BBC website user first and create a screen name that other users will recognise you by, but this is free to do.

The good old days
For a more retrospective look at topics in your area, be sure to check out the BBC’s Memoryshare project. This intriguing initiative allows users to swap memories about a particular event or neighbourhood from 1900 to the present day.

Search for memories about the area you live in by keyword or by date. Anyone with an interest in local history will find browsing the memories other people have posted fascinating.

Our favourite is the user who, as a small child growing up in the Anfield area of Liverpool in the 1940s, remembers children gathering underneath the windows of the Barker and Dobsons Toffee and Sweet Factory and waiting for the girls who worked in the factory to throw sweets out of the open windows for them.

If your interest in local history goes further than taking the odd nostalgic trip down memory lane, the website of the local library is a great place to start your research. Bedfordshire Libraries, for instance, has a comprehensive local information section on its website where you can search for historical information by local area, search for images or see a timeline of local events.

Use Google to track down local history societies by entering the keywords ‘local history’ or ‘historical society’ and the name of the local area you’re interested in into the search bar.

Many more established societies will give details on their websites of any talks or guided walks of the area taking place so this is a great way to get involved in the life of your local community.

For instance, type ‘Hampton historical society’ into Google, ensuring the ‘Pages from the UK’ option is selected beneath the main text box, and the website of the Hampton Project, which gives details of some of the area’s past famous residents and the history of local landmarks, features towards the top of the results returned.

There are loads of tips on researching past times on the Local History section of the BBC website, including guidance on using census data, researching the surrounding landscape and taking your first steps as a local historian. Be sure also to visit the National Archives website for pointers before you get started.

Get out and about
Need some time away from the computer? No problem.

Get your own little piece of the great outdoors and enjoy a taste of the good life with your own allotment.

To flex your green fingers, head back to the Directgov website and enter ‘apply for an allotment’ in the ‘Search this site’ text box.

To get away from the daily grind without having to wield a spade, search for a nearby nature reserve on the Natural England or RSPB websites – there are many more than you think.

If you prefer to get your fingers sticky with popcorn rather than mud, check what’s on at your local Odeon, Cineworld or Vue cinema.

To settle down with a good book, locate the nearest local public library by following the links on the Directgov website to ‘Home and Community’, ‘Your local council and council tax’ and ‘Your local council services’.

For something a little more active, head for the website of your local authority for details of leisure centres, swimming pools, tennis courts and other sporting facilities it runs. You may even find details of sporting clubs you can join, too.

To check what music, arts, family or theatre events are taking place in your region, visit the Ticketmaster website. Use the tabs at the top of the page to select the type of event you’re interested in, then take advantage of the postcode search. When you find an event you like the sound of, you can book tickets here, too.

Local businesses and traders
Whether you’re in need of a dentist, decorator or dog-grooming salon, hundreds of local businesses advertise their wares and services at Yell, the online Yellow Pages.

There are also listings of tradespeople and businesses on the Upmystreet website, with user ratings to guide you. This site also pulls together information about your local area that we’ve looked at in this feature, so it’s worth adding to the Favourites in your web browser.

If you’re looking for second-hand goods, check the classified ads on the Ad Trader website, using the postcode search to tailor listings for your area.

In this feature we’ve tried to show how you can use online resources to find out more about your community and surrounding area.

There is such a huge wealth of information about your neighbourhood waiting to be discovered online, though, that what we’ve had room to discuss here is just the tip of the iceberg.

Put a little time aside to explore for yourself and we’re sure you’ll find the world wide web has a lot to tell you about the world outside your front door.

Build a community website
Does your neighbourhood or local special interest group lack a voice on the web?

Make your voice heard by creating a website. It’s less daunting than it may sound and it won’t break the bank, either.

There are various web hosting packages available that include basics such as an internet domain name, space to store your website and email accounts for a monthly fee.

Easyspace offers a £2.49 a month package, for instance, that includes a .co.uk domain name and 500MB of storage. A simpler approach to website building is to use an all-inclusive package from a service provider such as 1 &1.

The 1&1 Beginner package costs just £1 a month for the first three months, then £1.99 a month, and includes 250MB of web space and a 3GB monthly traffic allowance as well as all the templates, tools and step-by-step guidance you need to put a basic website together. Registering a domain costs from £2.99 a year.

For more information, check out our Ultimate Guide to Easy Website Building, available for just £5.99 from Computeractive Direct. For more detailed information about the options and how-to guidance, see our complete online guide to building a website.

Keep an eye on local property prices
Just because you have no plans to move home doesn’t mean you can’t indulge in a spot of house price research.

Visit the Houseprices website and a quick postcode search will tell you how much properties in the area sold for. For regular updates of local property sales, sign up to the newsletter. Over at Housepricemaps meanwhile, enter your postcode and select a year from the dropdown menu to see the same data plotted on a map.

Ever wondered what your area looks like from the air? Google Maps will show you. Enter a postcode or place name in the main text box and click on the Search Maps button, then the Satellite button over on the top-right corner of the map that appears.

To buy an aerial photo of a UK neighbourhood as it looks today or as far back as 1947, visit UK Aerial Photos.

Find your local authority's website
Open your web browser and type www.direct.gov.uk/en/Dl1/Directories/Localcouncils into the address bar. Click on the ‘Search for your local council in England’ link. A new browser window will open.

Type your postcode, street and town or the name of the local authority into the text box, selecting the correct option above. For authorities outside England use the links listed instead.

The results of your search will be displayed. Click on one of the two options to either get contact details for your local authority or to visit its website.

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