What an event!
LocalGov Drupal Camp 2026 was our biggest and busiest Camp yet. Over three days community members came together to learn from each other, share ideas, and improve the platform that powers council websites across the UK and Ireland.
From practical sessions and roadmap discussions to contribution work and social events, LocalGov Drupal Camp showed what makes the LocalGov Drupal community different. People do not just turn up to listen. They turn up to help shape what happens next.
Starting with a social
Camp began with an evening social at the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield.
There was pizza. There was beer. (Slightly too much of both?).
Most importantly, there was plenty of time for people to catch up with old friends, meet new members of the community and play Guitar Hero far more seriously than anyone intended.
For many attendees, especially those joining us for the first time, it was a chance to experience the welcoming and collaborative culture that sits at the heart of the LocalGov Drupal community.
Learning, sharing and solving problems together
Across day 1, attendees explored some of the biggest challenges facing digital teams.
The most well-received session included those on:
- Forms and case management.
- AI search and governance.
- Community Fund projects.
- Committee management and Quorum.
- Content design and paragraphs.
- Intranets, consultations and service improvement.
The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. People consistently highlighted the practical nature of the sessions and the opportunity to learn from teams facing similar challenges.
One theme came up again and again: the value of being in the room together.
Camp is not just about presentations. It is about sharing experiences, discussing problems openly and learning from what has worked, and what has not, in other councils.
“This was my 2nd time attending camp and it’s absolutely brilliant to see how much this community is thriving and growing. Really inspiring to see everyone working together on shared challenges (from bins to buses!) using open source to build better digital services for everyone. Some great sessions to take-away from including Bus Data module and open source committee tool. Thanks for the inspiration folks!”
Susan Knox, Dumfries and Galloway Council
Shout-outs to all those who ran a session on the day:
- Justine Pocock, Chicken
- Alex Sturtivant, London Borough of Greenwich
- Harriet New and Jonny L. London Borough of Hackney
- Will Callaghan, Aaron Hirtenstein, and Finn Lewis, LocalGov Drupal
- Angie Forson, Southwark Council
- Craig Barker and Shazia Attia, Cumberland Council
- Graham Cole Webcurl Ltd
- Leanne Lewis, Essex County Council
- Alice Grey and Paul Jenkins, Big Blue Door
- Andy Broomfield, Brighton and Hove City Council
- Sucharitha Revanuru, Essex County Council
- Greg Harvey, Code Enigma
- Fintan Galvin, Invuse
- Steph Tucker and Ben Hills-Jones
And a special thanks to Jayvik Patel, from Luton Borough Council, for his help.
Contribution Day
The second day of Camp was dedicated to contributions.
Contribution Day is where ideas become code, bugs get fixed, new contributors get support, and the platform moves forward.
This year saw some fantastic outcomes:
- 37 attendees checked in.
- 5 first-time contributors were onboarded to Drupal.org.
- At least 18 issues were worked on.
- 9 issues were fixed, or merge requests merged.
- 2 new projects were started.
- New automated tests were added for LocalGov Multilingual.
The two new projects launched during the day were:
- LocalGov Microsites Sitemap, providing microsite-specific XML sitemaps.
- Case, a simple case management integration for webforms.
These are exactly the kinds of improvements that demonstrate the value of an open source community. Councils are not waiting for a vendor's roadmap. They are working together to solve shared problems and sharing the results with everyone.
Welcoming new contributors
One of the most encouraging outcomes from Contribution Day was the number of people making their first contribution.
Five attendees were onboarded to Drupal.org and introduced to the contribution workflow. Experienced community members spent time helping newcomers understand how issues are managed, how code reviews work and how contributions move through the project. (Thanks to Finn for his great work on this).
The long-term success of LocalGov Drupal depends on a steady flow of new contributors who bring fresh ideas, perspectives, and expertise to the community.
A community that keeps growing
Throughout the event there was a strong sense of openness and collaboration. Whether people were discussing AI governance, helping debug an issue, sharing lessons from a recent project there was a clear sense that everyone was working towards the same goal.
Local government faces plenty of challenges. Budgets remain tight, teams are stretched, and expectations continue to rise.
Events like LocalGov Drupal Camp remind us that councils do not have to solve those challenges alone.
By working together, sharing knowledge and contributing back to the platform, the community continues to build better digital services for residents while reducing duplication and making the most of limited resources.
“Once again it was an incredible event, big shout out to the organisers, who I still don't think realise quite how exceptional it is amongst the sea of supplier 'conferences' so common in the public sector.
It was great to see so many people, old friends and new. The current mission for LocalGov Drupal is 'thrive', if the last few days showed anything, that mission has already been achieved. “
Simon Chapman, Agile Collective
Thank you
A huge thank you to everyone who attended, presented, contributed, sponsored, organised and volunteered.
Special thanks go to the contributors who helped move issues forward during Contribution Day and to those who supported first-time contributors throughout the event.
The event only works because people are willing to share their time, experience and expertise with others.
We're already looking forward to seeing what the community achieves before we meet again next year.
Until then, see you in a meetup, dropin or Slack channel.
Thanks again to sponsors - The event wouldn't be possible without you.
- Gold sponsors - Annertech & Invuse
- Silver sponsors - Big Blue Door, Agile Collective, Webcurl Ltd & Zoocha
- Bronze sponsors - Rohallion, Code Enigma, Axelerant, The Confident, Upspun & Home Connections
- Social Sponsor - Big Blue Door