Vision
We share data and use technology to enhance growth, increase efficiency, minimise costs and produce better outcomes for the residents and businesses across the city. People in Plymouth are digitally confident and have the skills they need for employability.
Desired outcomes
- The city of Plymouth will have ultrafast internet and mobile network connectivity to support the ambitions of residents, communities, businesses and public services
- Residents have the skills to access the jobs of the future, with increased opportunities in a growing digital, data and technology industry
- Data will be open, accessible and shared with partners to change the way services are delivered, to improve access to healthcare services and to grow the economy
- Plymouth will be a city of innovation where data and technology driven solutions will help us create a sustainable city for the future
- We’ll use our unique location and geography to become the UK’s centre of excellence for advanced marine prototyping, testing and certification
- Use technology and data to support inclusive decision making for our green spaces and marine environments
The journey so far
With partners, the Council has secured £2.2 million grant funding to provide an ultrafast fibre broadband connection for public sector buildings such as hospitals, GP surgeries, schools and council buildings.
The Council is part of Connected Plymouth, a steering group drawn from the public and private sector that works to enhance the quality of digital connectivity and its exploitation by citizens and businesses across the city.
DATA Plymouth provides easy access to key data and intelligence about the city of Plymouth and its residents. Through DATA Play events people are encouraged to come together, to play with datasets and solve challenges.
The Smart Sound project to create a 5G network in the Hoe and offshore to develop autonomous marine navigation solutions, is an example of the city's ambition to become the UK’s centre of excellence for advanced marine prototyping, testing and certification.
Future Parks Accelerator
The Future Parks Accelerator project aims to find new ways to develop a more collaborative approach to caring for our parks and green spaces.
The project will use data and technology to work with local communities and create a Living Lab to collect information on wildlife activity, species sightings, air quality, temperature, humidity and pressure and number of visitors. Sensors will be developed and installed at green spaces across the city. Working with The Data Place the data will be open and shared on our open data platform and dashboards developed to inspire the people of Plymouth to get involved and take action.
Working with community volunteers, visitor counter sensors have been trialled in Central Park, Devonport Park and on Plymouth Hoe. The data is available on our open data platform.
Highway maintenance
Our highways team currently have around 40 sensors in gullies in key locations around the city. Data is fed back regularly on the level of fullness, light levels (to indicate obstruction) and if a gully has water at a level indicating it may flood. The data is used to help us target our maintenance of these key locations, which have been identified as being prone to flooding.
What we will do next to achieve our vision
- Through One Plymouth and Connected Plymouth we will take a proactive role in facilitating a joined up citywide digital approach, to both tackle shared challenges and benefit from shared opportunities.
- Work with partners to secure funding and inward investment into the city for digital technology initiatives and innovation.
- A commitment to joint working to create funding for roles which will enable collective development and ownership of the digital agenda for the city.
- Deliver the ultrafast fibre broadband connection for public sector buildings such as hospitals, GP surgeries, schools and council buildings. Use this as a catalyst for early delivery of 5G across the city.
- Work with partners to improve fibre and mobile networks across the city and take opportunities to explore Smart City initiatives and the wider use of different types of Internet of Things, e.g. sensors.
- Support the Smart Sound project to create a 5G network in the Hoe and offshore to develop autonomous marine navigation solutions.
- Deliver a GIS web mapping solution to support Plymouth Sound and Tamar Estuaries’ programme of works. Use this work to initiate a new strategic approach for the use of geospatial data (both terrestrial and marine/hydrographic).