About Cheltenham Open Data
About Cheltenham Open Data — a fast, independent, privacy-first site putting useful local data in the hands of people in Cheltenham and Gloucestershire.
What Cheltenham Open Data Is
Cheltenham Open Data puts the town’s public information in one place. Fuel prices, flood warnings, house prices, planning applications, school ratings, bus routes, care homes and more come from more than 60 official sources and are kept up to date automatically, some every few minutes and others as new figures are published.
It’s free, fast and independent: no pop-ups, no tracking cookies and no clickbait, just the information people in Cheltenham look for, laid out to read quickly on a phone.
Why It Exists
Useful local information is scattered across council PDFs, government spreadsheets and national sites that rarely focus on Cheltenham. This site brings it together and keeps it current, so you can check the cheapest fuel nearby, whether a street is in a flood zone or how a school was rated in a few seconds. Read why Cheltenham Open Data was built →
Who Runs It
Cheltenham Open Data is built and run by Mat Benfield (thechels.uk), who has lived in Cheltenham for more than 20 years. For a similar site, or a data project of your own, get in touch.
What You’ll Find Here
115 data pages in six topics, drawn from 77 data sources:
- Getting Around: fuel prices, EV charging, car parks and permit zones, roadworks, street works, reported street problems, buses, trains, taxi ranks and cycle routes.
- Home & Property: house prices, rents, council tax, home energy ratings, schools, nurseries and the university, planning applications, broadband, mobile coverage, recycling and bin collections.
- Safety & Environment: crime figures, road collisions, security alerts, flood warnings and river levels, river water quality, sewage overflows, air quality, wildfire risk and power cuts.
- Things to Do: festivals, points of interest, play parks, public toilets, where to eat, food hygiene ratings, places to stay, sport, clubs and societies, and arts and crafts.
- Community & Support: GPs and pharmacies, dentists, opticians, A&E waiting times, care homes, the COVID-19 pandemic, food banks, helplines, charities, third spaces, and post offices and parcel lockers.
- About & Info: the town in numbers, its history and population, a profile of every ward, the weather, public holidays, politics and local elections, the economy, deprivation, listed buildings, council land, local news and classifieds.
There’s also a free weekly newsletter and a set of guides for moving to, studying in and visiting Cheltenham.
How the Data Is Made
Most of the data comes from public sources, such as the ONS, the Environment Agency, the NHS and Cheltenham Borough Council. Scripts fetch each dataset on its own schedule and the site rebuilds itself, and every new dataset is checked by hand before it goes live.
Not everything comes from an official source, though. Some lists are researched and put together by hand, and kept up to date as things change.
Each page says where its data comes from, under what licence and when it was last updated, and the Terms of Use explain the licences we use. Our glossary explains the terms we use, including how far around Cheltenham each page looks.
How It’s Funded
The site is free to use, and always will be. It’s kept going by optional sponsorship, small affiliate commissions when you buy through some links, and ko-fi donations — never by selling your data or tracking you. Sponsored placements are always clearly labelled and never influence the data or editorial content. See the Privacy Policy for exactly what is and isn’t collected.
Get Involved
Spotted an error, or want to suggest a dataset? Get in touch — local input is what keeps this accurate. You can also submit a classified advert or report a local issue through Fix My Street.
Technology & Sustainability
The site is built as static HTML, CSS, and a little JavaScript, so it’s lightning quick on the client end. Python and GitHub Actions handle most of the compute, with a little run on the developer’s local machine; pages are built and deployed to GitHub Pages, and DNS and forms are managed by Cloudflare and Cloudflare Workers.
Only 0.05g of CO₂ is produced every time someone visits this website. This site appears to be running on sustainable energy - Source