fix(gedling): read the council's new bin collections portal, without a browser

[ryanocallaghan]

Gedling now publishes bin days through a Netcall Liberty Create portal at waste.digital.gedling.gov.uk ("Find your bin collection days").

The gbcbincalendars.co.uk API the scraper uses reads the old calendars, and has problems. Checked 18 October 2026:

• It takes 30 to 45 seconds per lookup.
• A postcode on its own always fails (500).
• Many addresses fail with Failed to get yearly calendar page. "101 Arnold Lane NG4 4HE" fails every time.

What this does

The portal draws its pages with JavaScript, but fetches each page's content with a plain POST carrying the page's form token, so no browser is needed:

1. Get the page's form token, then the address form.
2. Search the postcode through the address field's search action. It returns the addresses with the portal's own ids, not UPRNs.
3. Submit the form with the chosen address. The portal redirects to that address's next four weeks of collections.

About 1.5 seconds per lookup.

Inputs are unchanged: postcode and house_number, so existing configurations keep working. The address is chosen by its start, so a house number ("11", not "11A"), a house name ("Rose Cottage") or a number and street ("11 Gedling Road") all work. If nothing matches, the error lists the addresses found at the postcode.

Also:

• input.json: a real test address (11, NG5 6NQ), the portal URL, and a new wiki note.
• tests/test_gedling_borough_council.py: 9 unit tests against a fake portal, covering address choice, the submitted form, date order and error cases.

Tested:

• The unit tests pass.
• Live runs with collect_data.py GedlingBoroughCouncil ... -s -n "11" -p "NG5 6NQ", and with "101 Arnold Lane" / NG4 4HE, both returned collections.

One portal quirk, noted in the code: the browser leaves the address type-ahead box out of its submit. Sending it, even empty, makes the portal answer with an empty page.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features

  • Gedling collection lookups now use the council’s digital waste portal. Searches require a postcode and house number or name; you can optionally include the street. Addresses are matched by their starting text, helping distinguish similar house numbers.
  • Collection results are shown in date order.

• Bug Fixes

  • Clear errors are returned when required address details are missing, no address matches, or the portal response is unexpected.

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ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

• Configuration used: defaults
• Review profile: CHILL
• Plan: Advanced
• Run ID: 058f4236-dd4a-402b-8f0a-5b9132fe415a

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 964aa5e and 91d00e5.

📒 Files selected for processing: 2

• uk_bin_collection/tests/test_gedling_borough_council.py
• uk_bin_collection/uk_bin_collection/councils/GedlingBoroughCouncil.py

🚧 Files skipped from review as they are similar to previous changes: 2

• uk_bin_collection/tests/test_gedling_borough_council.py
• uk_bin_collection/uk_bin_collection/councils/GedlingBoroughCouncil.py

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📝 Walkthrough

Gedling’s collection scraper now uses the council’s digital portal instead of the external calendar API. It requires a postcode and house or name, selects an address by prefix, and parses and sorts collection dates from the portal response.

Changes: Gedling portal lookup

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Portal request and form setup uk_bin_collection/uk_bin_collection/councils/GedlingBoroughCouncil.py	The module configures portal requests, extracts form data, and initializes the address search form.
Address lookup and collection results uk_bin_collection/uk_bin_collection/councils/GedlingBoroughCouncil.py, uk_bin_collection/tests/test_gedling_borough_council.py, uk_bin_collection/tests/input.json	The scraper searches by postcode, selects an address by prefix, submits the form, parses dated collection rows, and sorts the results. Tests cover portal responses and error cases. Sample input uses the portal URL and house details.

Priority: ⬇️ Low

Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~20 minutes

Change: Bug fix

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant CouncilClass
  participant PortalSession
  participant GedlingPortal
  participant parse_collections
  CouncilClass->>PortalSession: Open form and search postcode
  PortalSession->>GedlingPortal: Send portal requests
  GedlingPortal-->>PortalSession: Return address results and collections page
  CouncilClass->>parse_collections: Parse collection rows
  parse_collections-->>CouncilClass: Return dated services

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Suggested reviewers: inertiauk, robbrad

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to 91d00

No confirmed lookup failure remains; the change is mergeable after normal checks.

Pre-merge checks: 4 · 1

Failed checks: 1 warning

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage		Docstring coverage is 35.00% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 20 functions across 2 files.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

Passed checks: 4 passed

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check		Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check		The title clearly and concisely describes the main change: updating Gedling collection lookups to use the council's new portal without a browser.
Linked Issues check		Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check		Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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Actionable comments posted: 1

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• 🪄 Fix comments: Fix CodeRabbit comments on this PR

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Inline comments:
Review comments at
@uk_bin_collection/uk_bin_collection/councils/GedlingBoroughCouncil.py:
- Around line 108-109: Update _get and _open_form so a missing AJAX_DYNAMIC_URL
is not replaced with path; when _open_form needs the action URL, raise a clear
ValueError if it is absent, matching the existing missing-token handling.

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ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

• Configuration used: defaults
• Review profile: CHILL
• Plan: Advanced
• Run ID: b0aabf4f-e306-4a9f-a483-281fddb3ba4a

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 0d1b26a and 964aa5e.

📒 Files selected for processing: 3

• uk_bin_collection/tests/input.json
• uk_bin_collection/tests/test_gedling_borough_council.py
• uk_bin_collection/uk_bin_collection/councils/GedlingBoroughCouncil.py

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