Government Announces Candiates For Future Cities Funding

The government has named the thirty city and borough councils from across the UK that will compete for the £24 million ‘future cities’ prize.

The candidates will receive £50,000 from the government’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board, to complete feasibility studies to show how they could integrate their transport, communications and other infrastructure to improve the local economy, quality of life and impact to the environment.

Cities that have completed the feasibility studies will be allowed to submit a proposal for a large scale demonstrator project, which will show the additional value that can be created integrating a city’s systems.

Government Future Cities

“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,” said Iain Gray, chief executive of the Technology Strategy Board. “The results will be made public and we look forward to seeing some exciting future city demonstrator proposals.”

The candidate councils 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 government first invited bids last month and feasibility reports and proposals for a large scale demonstrator must be submitted by 14 November, with the winner of the £24 million prize announced in January 2013.

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