| 28 July 2010 |
| Sustainable city model connects with Peterborough communities |
Creators of the Peterborough Model recently met with community bodies for a collaboration workshop to discuss how communities can become more involved in the project.
Representatives from Peterborough City Council’s neighbourhoods’ team, PECT, Innova Trust, Citizen Power and Peterborough Council for Voluntary Service, attended the workshop to discuss how the Peterborough Model could better connect communities to decision makers, and how they could use and inform the model to encourage more sustainable lifestyles to help tackle climate change.
The pioneering model - which supports Peterborough’s aspirations to become the UK’s Environment Capital - was developed through the collaboration of Opportunity Peterborough, Green Ventures, Royal Haskoning, IBM and Peterborough City Council. It is a web based platform using satellite imagery, aerial photography and 3D geographical maps to create an image of Peterborough’s current environmental performance and possible future issues, through gathering existing data on energy, water, transport, waste and our natural surroundings.
Residents will have access to the platform and will be able to use the information provided to improve home water and energy usage. The platform will enable the city council and utility companies (such as Anglian Water and EDF Energy) to work more effectively together to plan the long term energy and water infrastructure that is needed for a sustainable future.
Commenting on the project, Trevor Gibson, Director of Environment Capital, said “Technological advances allow cities to collate data and interpret it in ways not achieved before and Peterborough is going to be at the forefront of this new intelligence. Peterborough is using recognised expertise that will enable us to meet the sustainability challenges and achieve Peterborough’s aspirations as environment capital”.
Phil Newby, Director at Green Ventures said: “We wanted to create a tool that works for the individual, the community and the city, something that could quickly visualise the city’s environmental information and connect residents to decision makers, helping people to collaborate and drive change.”
Phil added; “Even a small city like Peterborough is a very complex place. If you can visualise a problem it becomes easier to understand, and more pressing to fix. Most importantly, if the data is shared, it makes collaboration easier, which in turn will speed the pace of change”.
Opinions from the workshop will be used to take the development of the model to the next stage; focusing on how the model will be used by schools, community bodies and individuals, and identifying the benefits it will bring to them.
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For further information please contact Laura Brewis, Marketing and Communications Manager.
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