Reporting street problems in Ponta Delgada

What CleanSpot does that the council’s reports and suggestions form does not

The council’s reports and suggestions form is a channel between you and Ponta Delgada council: you send the report and the case stays between you and the services. CleanSpot is something else. Every report is a pin on a public map from the first second, and neighbours see it, confirm it, add photos and can volunteer to deal with it.

That changes what happens when the services are slow. In a municipal channel the alternative to silence is chasing. In a network, the alternative is somebody acting: a dumped bag does not have to wait for a crew if three people on the street decide to clear it on Saturday.

And CleanSpot does not stop at the municipal boundary. The municipality and parish are resolved automatically from the pin’s coordinates against real administrative boundaries. Report in Ponta Delgada and report anywhere else in the country with the same app.

The council’s channel: Ocorrências e sugestões

Ponta Delgada council takes reports through an «Ocorrências e sugestões» form in the residents’ area of its website. The council app exists, but it is presented as a guide to the municipality, not a reporting channel.

• Phone: 296 304 400 (weekdays, 8:30–16:30)
• Email: geral@mpdelgada.pt

A report that gets resolved, on any channel

What moves a report forward is nearly always the same whatever the channel: someone has to be able to find the spot and understand what is there without phoning you to ask.

• Exact location: coordinates or a pin on a map, not just the street name
• One photo close up and one from further back, so size and access are clear
• What it is: bags, rubble, furniture, a pothole, a dead street light
• How long it has been there, and whether it is the first time
• If there is a hazard (glass, asbestos, a hole on a crossing), say so first

What CleanSpot has that a municipal channel does not

• A public map of everything reported, with date, photo and coordinates
• Cleanups: anyone can volunteer, alone or as a group event with invitations and a shared recap
• Groups, comments, messages and mentions, because keeping a street clean is neighbours’ work rather than form-filling
• Vision AI that suggests severity and tags from the photo
• Duplicate detection: if a pin already exists a few metres away, your photo joins that record instead of splitting it
• Per-location recurrence history, the argument that justifies a new container or more collections
• Works offline: the report queues and uploads when there is a connection
• 30 languages, free, no advertising

Sources

• Câmara Municipal de Ponta Delgada (2026-10-19)