Delivering smart cities
SMART CITIES
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Bristol won the 2015 European Green Capital award in recognition of its efforts to become a sustainable city
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directly elected mayor and a keen supporter of the smart city agenda, said at the time: “Bristol is now the only city in the UK to have won funding from government to be both a super-connected and a future city. Bringing these awards together gives us a pot of nearly £15 million (€18.5 million), with which we can move really quickly to lever in additional funding and support from business to help deliver our plans.” One such plan was to Bristol is one of the UK’s best examples for demonstrating secure an advantage over how European Union funding can be combined with national Glasgow in becoming the UK’s first smart city test bed, funding initiatives to eventually reach city streets thanks to its collaboration with Bristol University – smart city voyage. Again, climate change and the smart Bristol is Open – which was announced in March 2015. This joint city agendas coincide. Bristol was selected as the European Green venture will benefit hugely from another pot of funding, this time Capital 2015 on the back of its efforts to transform itself into a from the EU. In October 2015, Bristol was selected as a ‘lighthouse’ sustainable city, with its pledge to commit a budget of €300 million city under the EIP-SCC Replicate (Renaissance of Places with ($342 million) to a key smart city aspiration – energy efficiency Innovative Citizenship and Technologies) programme and will and renewable energy – being a major factor in the decision. share in the €25 million ($28.5 million) award. At least €100 million ($114 million) of this money is provided by the EIB and the European Local Energy Assistance fund. Accelerating the UK’s smart city sector The Green Capital award is just one strand of Bristol’s strategy, Innovate UK, the funding stream behind the Future Cities which started even before the mayor’s office successfully entered Demonstrator, is backing more than just individual cities in its bid a smart city competition to win £50,000 (€61,000) from the to speed up the smart city sector. It supported the establishment Technology Strategy Board (now Innovate UK). The prize money of the Hypercat Alliance, with grants of almost £8 million received in 2012 was used to develop a business plan to compete (€9.9 million) to develop a smart city standard for the Internet for a more lucrative £24 million (€29.7 million) award to the city of Things (IoT). It also injected seed funding to launch the Open selected as the UK Future Cities Demonstrator. Data Institute (ODI) in London’s Shoreditch, with an investment In March 2012, Bristol was also recognised as a super-connected of £10 million (€12.4 million) over five years. In November 2015, city by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which ODI selected Bristol as one of its 22 network nodes. had been allocated a budget of £150 million (€185.8 million) to create Winning national and international competitions for funding 22 such cities. The city was awarded £11.3 million (€14 million) to decreases the overall risk of the projects and gives banks help fund a scheme to install ultrafast broadband and open-access confidence to participate in some technology innovation WiFi across the city under the banner Gigabit Bristol. programmes without partners. Bristol has demonstrated how A year later, in January 2013, Bristol was awarded £3 million this can be achieved with great success. The city’s journey is (€3.7 million) as runner-up in the Future Cities Demonstrator not over, as it eagerly awaits the results of a further competition competition won by Glasgow. George Ferguson, Bristol’s first to become the nation’s IoT demonstrator.