Local Lockdown Lookup – Comparison
There are a plethora of these services now, it appears. I have made a quick comparison table between them, hopefully have not got anything wrong. Let me know if so, of course. My form is underneath the table, or on its own page.
| Site | LockdownAPI | PoliticsHome | Parliament | Times | BBC | dracos.co.uk (Me!) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accuracy | ||||||
| Handles sub-council area (e.g. Llanelli) | ✘ No | Whole area marked on map, text says Llanelli only | ✔ Yes | ✘ No, restricts all Carmarthenshire | ✘ No result, links to council website | ✔ Yes |
| Handles non-centralised rules (e.g. Tower Hamlets) | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✔ Yes |
| Links to direct source for checking (not just top-level) | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✔ Yes | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✔ Yes |
| Links to council websites | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | Only in lockdown areas it knows about | ✔ Yes |
| Handles all UK | ✔ Yes | ✘ No; has out-of-date text for NI | ✔ Yes | ✔ Yes | ✔ Yes | ✔ Yes |
| Is accurate as of 10am, 3rd October | Lacking important info, such as travel restrictions | ✘ No (e.g. is missing Wolverhampton) | Only points out missing local areas in Scotland if you click Show more | ✘ No (e.g. says can meet others in pubs in Preston) | ✘ No (e.g. says parts of Bradford are different) | ✔ Yes |
| Features | ||||||
| Has postcode lookup | ✔ Yes | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✔ Yes | ✔ Yes | ✔ Yes |
| Has geolocation | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✔ Yes |
| Has a map | ✘ No | ✔ Yes | ✔ Yes | ✔ Yes | ✘ No | ✘ No |
| Include NHS App risk level in England/Wales | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✔ Yes |
| Includes other information | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | Local case figures | ✘ No | ✘ No |
| Open process for accepting changes | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✔ Yes |
| Performance | ||||||
| Works without JavaScript | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✘ No | ✔ Yes |
| Size of page transfer | 0.53MB | 1.3MB | 3.5MB | 2.4MB | 0.88MB | 0.13MB |
This lookup uses MapIt (an API to provide postcode/point to council lookup, take a look) to look up the council and ward for the location, and then tells you if there are currently any nationally-imposed local restrictions.
Data last updated at 6pm on 14th May 2021, with changes for Scotland next week.
Notes
- A few postcodes cross council boundaries; this tool will hopefully return both results in such cases, but due to what is available as open data (there now exists a UPRN to postcode mapping, but for all UPRNs, not just addressable ones, and what type a UPRN is is not open data) will have some false positives. Many have campaigned for full address open data over the years, for many reasons such as this; the government do have access to the full, better, data and could make a tool like this that worked correctly even for those postcodes. As it is, the official site currently sadly does not handle split postcodes at all.
- You can also enter lat,lon if you don’t have a postcode, or use the “Use your location” button. Any locations and postcodes are not stored anywhere apart from the server’s log file which is automatically archived each week and then automatically deleted after ten weeks.
- Local authorities may also have put in place local restrictions I don’t know about from the national pages. Do check your council’s website.
- Back in October, I made a comparison chart between this service and other similar ones.
- To help me keep this up to date, the code is on GitHub. Pull Requests for changes to the areas are welcome.
- If I am unable to keep this up to date, I will immediately remove it and leave only these links to the various UK government sites. You can also use those links if you do not want to provide a postcode.
- https://www.microcovid.org/ is a useful tool to
provide you with estimated risk level of various activities.
Avoid the 3 Cs: Crowds, Closed Spaces, and Close Contact. MODify your socializing: Masked, Outdoors, Distanced.