Swindon is one of 30 councils from across the country carrying out Government-funded studies on ways to improve the local economy in a bid to win a share of £24m in ‘future city’ funding from the Technology Strategy Board.
The council will receive £50,000 from the Technology Strategy Board – the Government’s innovation agency, which is based in Swindon – to complete feasibility study. It will show how the town’s transport, communications and other infrastructure can be integrated to improve the local economy, increase quality of life and reduce impact on the environment.
Councils taking part will also be able to submit a proposal for a large-scale ‘future cities demonstrator’ showing how the town or city’s multiple systems will be integrated and how challenges will be addressed – and one successful town or city will be awarded £24m funding to implement their proposal.
In Swindon this will fund work to look at the potential of integrating three key Swindon projects around hydrogen, district energy and 4G wi-fi.
Technology Strategy Board chief executive Iain Gray said: “We planned originally to fund 20 feasibility studies but because of the number of high-quality initial proposals received from councils across the whole country we decided to increase the funding available so that 30 studies could be carried out. The results will be made public and we look forward to seeing some exciting future city demonstrator proposals.”
The feasibility study reports and proposals for a large scale demonstrator must be submitted by 14 November. After assessment and interviews the winning proposal will be announced in January 2013.
The future cities demonstrator project will demonstrate, at scale and in use, the additional value that can be created by integrating a city’s systems. The project will enable businesses to test – in practice – new solutions for connecting and integrating individual city systems, and will allow cities to explore new approaches to delivering a good local economy and excellent quality of life, whilst reducing the environmental footprint and increasing resilience to environmental change.
The Technology Strategy Board is also establishing the Future Cities Catapult – a world-leading technology and innovation centre. It will help UK businesses create products and services that meet the needs of the world’s cities as they adapt to future demands. The Technology Strategy Board will arrange for ongoing monitoring and collection and analysis of data from the demonstrator through the Future Cities Catapult.
