Public Map for Local Communities

Your lived experience helps shape decisions about your place.

You don't need expertise, data skills, or long reports. Public Map gives you a simple way to share what matters to you about where you live — and to see that it's being taken seriously. Every contribution becomes part of a bigger picture that helps organisations and decision-makers understand local needs more clearly.

Our focus is on the positive: helping communities see the potential of their places, as well as the challenges.

Share What You Notice

Put your knowledge on the map.

  • Tag observations, memories, and stories to specific locations
  • Record places of connection, nature, heritage, joy, and belonging
  • Upload photos, films, and sound recordings
  • Verify and add context to contributions from others in your community

Add Evidence & Context

Make your insight count.

  • Attach lived-experience layers — lighting, noise, accessibility, movement routes
  • Support your contributions with context so they carry weight

Get Involved

Find your way in.

  • Join the Public Map community via our newsletter and events
  • Access community science data-gathering activities
  • Get trained on how to map
  • Bespoke mapped data reports - mapped data as evidence of need for funding applications
  • Facilitated engagement events

Helps with: Community voice · Local advocacy · Belonging · Connection · Civic participation · Understanding your place

Working towards a future that prioritises the wellbeing of people and planet.
Public Map Platform is being led by Cambridge, Cardiff and Wrexham Universities and is part of the Future Observatory - the Design Museum’s national research programme for the green transition. The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This website does not use cookies and does not collect personally identifying information.