Peterborough City Council is among 30 councils from across the UK which are to carry out government-funded studies in a bid to win a £24 million ‘future city’ prize.
The thirty councils will receive £50,000 each from the government’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board to complete feasibility studies showing how they could integrate their transport, communications and other infrastructure to improve the local economy, increase quality of life and reduce impact on the environment.
The cities that have completed the feasibility studies will also be able to submit a proposal for a large-scale ‘future cities demonstrator’, showing how the city’s multiple systems will be integrated and how challenges in the city will be addressed – and one successful city will be awarded £24m funding to implement their proposal.
Iain Gray, Chief Executive of the Technology Strategy Board, said: “We planned originally to fund twenty 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 thirty studies could be carried out.
“The results will be made public and we look forward to seeing some exciting future city demonstrator proposals.”
The city and borough councils that have each secured £50,000 funding for the feasibility studies are: Belfast, Birmingham, Brighton & Hove, Bristol, Cambridge, Camden, Cardiff, Coventry, Derby, Dundee, Enfield, Glasgow, Ipswich, Leeds (working with Bradford), Leicester, London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Nottingham, Peterborough, Plymouth, Salford, Sheffield, Southampton, Southend-on-Sea, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland, Swindon and Warrington.
The feasibility study reports, and proposals for a large scale demonstrator, must be submitted by 14 November 2012.
After assessment and interviews the winning proposal will be announced in January 2013.
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