Where Senra Radar gets its data

Radar does not generate data. It aggregates eleven public data sources, clips them to the exact ward polygon using Office for National Statistics boundaries, and re-reads each source every six hours. The full source list is below, with the honest lag on each.

“Lag” below means the gap between an event happening in the real world and it appearing in the source data. Radar cannot close that gap — it is inherent to the publisher’s workflow. Where lag is long, we say so. Where a source is near real time, we say that too.

Planning applications

Field	Detail
Publisher	Each council’s planning portal (typically IDOX, sometimes Objective, Northgate, or bespoke)
What we pull	Application reference, address, description, status, decision, key dates, applicant where public
Radar refresh	Every 6 hours
Upstream lag	Usually less than 24 hours from validation to portal. Decisions take longer: committee cycles are fortnightly or monthly.
Known limitations	Some older applications have incomplete fields. Addresses are not always geocoded; where they are not, the application may fall outside our polygon-clip check and be excluded from ward view.

Street issue reports

Field	Detail
Publisher	FixMyStreet, operated by mySociety
What we pull	Report category, location, status, opened date, closed date where available
Radar refresh	Every 6 hours
Upstream lag	Near real time on creation. Closure status depends on the council updating FixMyStreet, which varies from hours to never.
Known limitations	Reports filed directly to the council (not via FixMyStreet) are not included. Categories differ slightly between councils.

Police-recorded crime

Field	Detail
Publisher	data.police.uk, Home Office
What we pull	Crime category, approximate location (snapped to a street-level anchor), outcome, month
Radar refresh	Monthly, when a new release drops (typically mid-month)
Upstream lag	4 to 8 weeks. A crime in March appears in the April or May release. This is a real constraint and it is not something Radar can improve.
Known limitations	Locations are intentionally blurred to the nearest anchor point for privacy. Exact addresses are not in the public feed and Radar does not have them either.

Residential property sales

Field	Detail
Publisher	HM Land Registry, Price Paid Data
What we pull	Address, sale price, sale date, property type, tenure (freehold or leasehold), new-build flag
Radar refresh	Monthly
Upstream lag	Usually 1 to 3 months from completion to publication. Slow conveyancers push this out further.
Known limitations	Commercial transactions and bulk purchases are excluded from Price Paid. Some addresses lack coordinates and are excluded.

Food hygiene ratings

Field	Detail
Publisher	Food Standards Agency
What we pull	Business name, address, rating (0 to 5), last inspection date, business type
Radar refresh	Weekly
Upstream lag	A new rating appears within a few weeks of inspection. Between inspections (which can be 6 to 24 months apart) the rating does not change.
Known limitations	Hygiene rating reflects one visit: it is a snapshot, not a trend line.

Energy Performance Certificates (EPC)

Field	Detail
Publisher	Department for Levelling Up (now MHCLG) EPC register
What we pull	Address, EPC band (A to G), energy efficiency score, certificate date, property type
Radar refresh	Monthly
Upstream lag	A new EPC appears within weeks of issue. Most EPCs are valid for 10 years, so the register skews old.
Known limitations	A certificate can be up to 10 years old and still show as “current.” Improvements made since the last EPC will not be reflected.

Stop and search

Field	Detail
Publisher	data.police.uk, Home Office
What we pull	Approximate location, date, self-defined ethnicity, legislation used, outcome
Radar refresh	Monthly, alongside crime data
Upstream lag	Same as crime data: 4 to 8 weeks.
Known limitations	Locations are blurred the same way crime locations are. Not every force uploads stop and search data with the same completeness.

Road traffic accidents

Field	Detail
Publisher	Department for Transport, STATS19
What we pull	Location, date, severity (slight, serious, fatal), vehicle and casualty counts, conditions
Radar refresh	Annual, when DfT publishes the STATS19 release
Upstream lag	Significant: the DfT release for year N typically lands the following summer. A crash in January 2026 will appear in mid-2027.
Known limitations	This is the longest-lag source in Radar. It is useful for long-run pattern analysis, not for recent incidents. If you need recent accident data, contact your council’s road safety team directly.

Companies House registrations

Field	Detail
Publisher	Companies House (UK government)
What we pull	Company name, registered office address, status (active / dissolved), incorporation date, SIC industry code
Radar refresh	Every 6 hours
Upstream lag	Usually less than 24 hours from filing to public register entry. Same-day on time-sensitive filings.
Known limitations	Free Companies House data covers the registry only. Detailed accounts and director histories sit behind the paid Companies House API and are not aggregated here.

Parliament petitions

Field	Detail
Publisher	UK Parliament e-petitions service
What we pull	Open petitions with their signature counts broken down by parliamentary constituency, mapped to ward via constituency boundaries
Radar refresh	Every 6 hours
Upstream lag	Near real time on signature counts; small delay on government-response and threshold events.
Known limitations	Parliament publishes signature counts by constituency, not by ward. Ward-level numbers are inferred via constituency-to-ward mapping; expect minor distribution noise where wards span constituency boundaries.

Road works and street works

Field	Detail
Publisher	Department for Transport Street Manager — mandatory submission system for utility companies and highway authorities
What we pull	Permits + activities: location, start and end dates, traffic management type, highway authority, work category
Radar refresh	Real time via SNS push notifications, with a six-hourly poll as a fallback
Upstream lag	Typically less than 24 hours from utility scheduling to register publication. Varies by authority compliance.
Known limitations	England statutory road works only. Authorities that submit irregularly will show gaps; we surface what Street Manager publishes.

What Radar does not have

Equally important: a few things councillors ask about that Radar does not pull, and why.

• Council meeting agendas and minutes. Modern.Gov already covers this well. See our Modern.Gov comparison.
• MP voting records and Hansard. TheyWorkForYou is the right tool. Radar covers local, not national.
• Parish council minutes. No consistent national publishing format exists.
• Real-time police incident data (999 calls). Not publicly published by any force. What you see on Radar is police-recorded crime, which is a different, slower dataset.
• Resident casework notes. Radar does not ingest anything that residents share with councillors privately. That stays with you.

Boundaries

Every record above is clipped to the ward polygon from the Office for National Statistics statistical boundaries, not a postcode approximation. When the LGBCE (Local Government Boundary Commission for England) redraws boundaries after a review, we update within one release cycle.

This matters because postcode sectors straddle wards. A FixMyStreet report filed from a postcode that sits in two wards will appear in Radar for the ward the actual point lies in, not both.