Distribution buildings in Local Enterprise Area Avonmouth to become part of most advanced digital city

Bristol is bidding for the cash under the Government’s Future Cities Award scheme – one of four cities hoping to secure the investment to create a Future City Demonstrator.

Bristol’s bid centres on an IT platform which pulls together real-time data about how the city works from sources such as transport, energy, water, health and economy.

This is an exciting prospect as this technology would enhance the efficiency that Bristol worked at, therefore enhancing productivity and allowing for growth and expansion. Phones are getting smarter so why not cities? With technologies available that could save millions of pounds and enhance business, Bristol is a city that is moving with the times and is a frontrunner in the race to be one of the great modern metropolises.

Those behind the bid – including Mayor George Ferguson, who led a delegation of business and community leaders to London to promote it earlier this week – say Bristol’s case is strengthened by its many businesses, large and small, with the skills, knowledge and ideas to make use of open data and anonymous information.

Bristol is a city that is business minded and it is advancements like this that will drive the city forward. It is a proposal that will attract new investors as well as maintaining economic confidence in the area.

Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, Mr Ferguson “Bristol has a very compelling bid and is the ideal place to locate a Future City Demonstrator. This exciting project will create new jobs not just for Bristol but for the UK as a whole, and will have determined leadership from me as the city’s new mayor.”

Bristol was originally one of 30 cities in the running in the competition, staged by the Government-backed Technology Strategy Board.  It is now short-listed alongside London, Peterborough and Glasgow.

This is an exciting time and all businesses and investors will be keeping a close on the race.

Source: Bristol Business News