Ideas Incubator

**Margaret Campbell's Freedom of Information Act Requests** Clearly one Margaret Campbell has been very busy requesting allotment waiting list information from across the country: [link][1] Is there any way of scraping this data easily and doing something useful with it? The requests all ask for the following information (which is all useful for the Allotment Finder): As of January 2011, please could you tell me: 1) How many allotment sites are there in X for which X Borough Council has access to waiting list data? 2) What is the total number of plots on these sites? 3) What is the total number of people on waiting lists for these sites? 4) Are any of these waiting lists closed to further applications? 5) How many new council allotment sites were brought into use in 2010? Please give: a) number of new sites b) names of new sites c) total area of new land in hectares d) total number of new plots **UPDATE** **I have found some further info on Margaret's requests: [link][2]** **The full database of the Councils that responded can be downloaded [here][3]**. **The full report ('Allotment Waiting Lists in England 2010') can be downloaded [here][4]**. [1]: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/margaret_campbellhttp://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/margaret_campbell [2]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/7631631/Allotment-waiting-list-jumps-20pc.html [3]: http://www.transitiontownwestkirby.org.uk/ [4]: http://www.transitiontownwestkirby.org.uk/files/ttwk_nsalg_survey_2010.pdf

**Margaret Campbell's Freedom of Information Act Requests** Clearly one Margaret Campbell has been very busy requesting allotment waiting list information from across the country: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/margaret_campbell country: [link][1] Is there any way of scraping this data easily and doing something useful with it? The requests all ask for the following information (which is all useful for the Allotment Finder): As of January 2011, please could you tell me: 1) How many allotment sites are there in X for which X Borough Council has access to waiting list data? 2) What is the total number of plots on these sites? 3) What is the total number of people on waiting lists for these sites? 4) Are any of these waiting lists closed to further applications? 5) How many new council allotment sites were brought into use in 2010? Please give: a) number of new sites b) names of new sites c) total area of new land in hectares d) total number of new plotsplots [1]: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/margaret_campbell

**Margaret Campbell's Freedom of Information Act Requests** Clearly one Margaret Campbell has been very busy requesting allotment waiting list information from across the country: http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/margaret_campbell Is there any way of scraping this data easily and doing something useful with it? The requests all ask for the following information (which is all useful for the Allotment Finder): As of January 2011, please could you tell me: 1) How many allotment sites are there in X for which X Borough Council has access to waiting list data? 2) What is the total number of plots on these sites? 3) What is the total number of people on waiting lists for these sites? 4) Are any of these waiting lists closed to further applications? 5) How many new council allotment sites were brought into use in 2010? Please give: a) number of new sites b) names of new sites c) total area of new land in hectares d) total number of new plots