Urban Foresight provided advice on how to digitally transform the borough in a way that would also support wider ambitions around community cohesion and digital inclusion. 

The local population has an average age of just 33, which the council recognised had created high expectations around digital connectivity and channel shift.

Urban Foresight designed a bespoke process of interviews and participatory workshops to build consensus on the priority needs and desired outcomes to inform an action plan. This covered digital network infrastructure, digital inclusion and skills, and a range of smart city applications. 

The outputs of this work included: 

• Review and gap analysis of the existing strategies; 
• Business cases to accelerate the digital transformation of the borough; 
• Recommendations on their new “Connected Communities” strategy; 
• Operating model, organisational roadmap and competency model.