Greenwich

Smart City
Strategy

www.digitalgreenwich.com
www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk
Foreword from
Leader of The Royal Borough of Greenwich

The challenge for our cities has never been greater: increasing demands on
services and infrastructure, reducing budgets, increased expectations, concerns
about the environment and global competition. From all these perspectives
we need our cities to work better – for our residents, businesses and
visitors. Advances in technology and data analysis provide us with the tools to
understand better the functioning of our cities, and to plan and deliver services
more effectively. But the challenge is more than just how we improve our
services. Technology development impacts upon the economy, the design of
the built environment, and even the relationship between residents and the
Council. But let us be clear: communities are at the core of cities and need
to be at the core of a smart city strategy. This strategy is, first and foremost,
about our people, with technology the enabler of change.
The purpose of publishing this Smart City Strategy is to begin this process
of change - a change that puts Greenwich at the forefront of public service
transformation and true leaders in the business of providing solutions to urban
challenges. I use the word “business” advisedly: urban innovation is becoming
a massive global market, estimated to be worth over $400 billion by 2020. By
taking a leading role, not only will we improve the quality of life in Greenwich,
but also provide a source of high value jobs.
Smart City innovation is not ‘business as usual’. It is looking at how we can use
technology to innovate, to find new solutions and to create a better future
for our cities and its communities. Ours is an ambitious and far reaching
strategy that acknowledges the need for the Council to adapt, and respond
to, the challenge and opportunity technology presents. It signals our ambition
to continue Greenwich’s long established association with innovation and
discovery. To become, once again, London’s hub of innovation, its test bed for
new ideas – London’s smart Borough.
I should also note in conclusion that successful change requires clear vision and
leadership. I would like to reassure you that, together with my leadership team,
I will give this the highest priority to make it a success.
Thank you for your interest and support.

Cllr Denise Hyland

Leader of the Royal Borough of Greenwich
London, UK.

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 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy

Contents

Executive Summary 4

1 Introduction 9

2 Smart Neighbourhoods & Communities 17

3 Infrastructure for Change 25

4 An Innovative & Smart Council 33

5 Economic Growth and Higher Value Jobs 41

6 The Way Forward 51

3
Executive Summary

Background
Cities around the world are confronted with a range of challenges. These include demographic change
and the rising cost of healthcare, traffic congestion and high levels of emissions, the need to improve
employment prospects and the quality of work in the face of technical change and, following the financial
crisis, to deliver services with significantly reduced budgets and higher citizen expectations. Greenwich is no
different. For example:
-it is estimated that between 2010 and 2028, the Borough’s population will rise by 34%, with the number
of people over 65 rising 57%, from 26,000 to 41,000;
-cars account for 45% of journeys made in the Borough and congestion on the approach roads to the
Blackwall Tunnel leads to high levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the locale;
-the local economy is heavily reliant on relatively low skills and low paid service jobs which possibly reflects
the fact that the qualifications of 38% of Greenwich residents are no higher than NVQ 2 - the equivalent
of GCSEs – a group which is particularly vulnerable to the automation of simple, repetitive, service tasks;
and
-the Council, like others, has been forced to make considerable savings and is being required to find
further savings over the next three years which, together, will amount to a significant reduction in Council
expenditure per head.
An increasing number of cities are turning to “smarter” approaches in planning their future, in creating
a modern infrastructure and in delivering services. Greenwich has played an important role in shaping
thinking in how innovation can be harnessed to improve cities, particularly in the development of national
and international standards. The Council is committed to adopting such “smart city” approaches to cope
with the many challenges ahead and to create new opportunities for business and local communities.
This strategy sets out how the Council proposes to do that and underpins and complements the Council’s
existing strategies and vision.

What are the Foundations of a “Smart City”?

For some, it is simply investing in ultra-fast broadband and other digital technologies, or installing a
management control centre and a range of technology solutions to specific challenges. In truth, there is
no digital “silver bullet”: the complex nature of the urban environment and how it evolves over time in
response to technological, economic and social change requires a systemic approach, which draws on the
full range of policy instruments, but it is certainly underpinned by the use of technology and the ability to
collect, transmit, manage and interpret data, and make it available, to enable both service providers and
users to make better decisions. Smarter use of new technology also enables cities to be designed and
planned more effectively, to manage demand for services and encourage citizens to use lower cost modes
of delivery i.e. to promote “channel shift”. Thus, in our view, a “smart city” is one that:
- provides clear leadership and drive, while engaging with citizens and businesses in a transparent and
democratic manner;
- develops a vision and strategy for the city which is informed by leading international experience and,
where possible, builds on its past, its strong sense of community, a respect for its natural environment,
and optimizes the use of space/the built environment and resources in the face of demographic, industrial
and technology change;
- provides a modern, digital infrastructure and connectivity that is globally competitive;

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 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy

- develops a culture of sharing information which supplies users and service providers with the real time
information that they need to take informed decisions, which also has a predictive capability, to ensure
optimum use of current capacity to anticipate problems, and the means to plan more effectively for the
future;
- offers a business environment, which allows a wide range of businesses to flourish and encourages new
high value firms to locate in the city;
- provides an education and skills infrastructure that offers all citizens the opportunity to participate in the
digital economy and to secure well paid employment, regardless of sector;
- has the mechanisms, resources and culture in place to support agility and innovation within its own public
services, that is at the forefront of good practice i.e. it is a “learning organization”, able to manage risk and
develop new approaches in a timely and cost-effective manner, in order to deliver high quality services
that engage with and meet the needs of the citizen, rather than organizational convenience and traditions.

Objectives and Principles

The aim is to display the above attributes and characteristics so that Greenwich becomes recognized
as London’s “smart” and innovative Borough, able to deliver resource-efficient, low-carbon, healthy
and liveable neighbourhoods within the Borough, where citizens enjoy improved social and economic
opportunities, while feeling part of the community and part of the decision making processes affecting the
environments and communities they live in, and where services are delivered efficiently and reflect the
needs and aspirations of citizens. Above all, it is that Greenwich is a most desirable and vibrant place to
live, work or visit.

The approach is based on the key principles of:

-inclusivity: this is a strategy aimed to benefit all citizens, communities and neighbourhoods;
-citizen centric: we aim to transform citizen engagement in the Borough to ensure our policies put citizens
at the forefront of our policy development and meet their needs;
-transparency: citizens will be informed of change and its outcomes, and information will be made
accessible for the benefit of our citizens;
-standards and good practice: Greenwich will follow the principles of a “learning organization”, open to
new ideas and an exemplar in the use of standards and good management practice - evidence based,
outcomes driven and willing to share.

A Strategy of Transformation
The strategy sets out an ambitious programme of transformation in four main areas:
(i) 
Transforming Neighbourhoods and Communities: The Council recognizes the diversity
within the Borough and the importance of a co-ordinated approach to ensure that
proposals meet the needs of citizens within their individual communities. The Council
shall focus on:
- removing the digital divide and ensuring all citizens can take advantage of the internet
by promoting digital skills;

5
 - developing a strategy to roll out ultra-fast digital broadband to all neighbourhoods,
so that all have access to world class connectivity and to high quality public services,
delivered via digital technology;
- piloting new concepts/approaches, such as “smart” parking, the “Digital High Street”,
smart waste collection, and telecare, across the Borough’s neighbourhoods;
- strengthening our relationships with organisations, such as the Peabody Trust in
Thamesmead, working to improve the quality of life in communities.

(ii) 
Transforming Infrastructure: Transport connectivity is to be considerably enhanced
by the extension of Crossrail to Woolwich and Abbey Wood, in 2017, which will
transform travel times and capacity into the City, West End and Heathrow. The quality
of the Borough’s physical infrastructure will also be enhanced by the development
that is necessary to accommodate the increase in its population. However, a recent
House of Lords report, “Make or Break: The UK’s Digital Future”, highlighted the
importance of a modern digital infrastructure to business competitiveness and noted
that, in terms of average broadband download speeds, London came 26th out of 33
European capitals. If the Council is to promote the digital delivery of public services,
and establish Greenwich as an area where new digital businesses can prosper, then
it needs to ensure that both public and private sector organisations have access to
globally competitive connectivity – fixed and mobile. Furthermore, if Masterplans and
new developments are to be energy efficient and sustainable, and if the Council is to
promote intelligent mobility, then it needs to embrace the widespread use of sensors
and actuators in the built environment – the so called Internet of Things and Building
Information Modelling – which are important building blocks in the concept of a smart
neighbourhood. The Council will therefore:
- seek to develop a strategy to deliver ultra-fast broadband to all parts of the Borough;
- work with Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to develop the Council’s
application of Building Information Modelling in Borough developments, to improve
understanding of the built environment and how it operates.

(iii)  ransforming Public Services: Public services have traditionally been delivered by
T
separate teams, with their own separate information systems, which has militated
against a co-ordinated and citizen-centric approach, and new innovative methods,
making appropriate use of digital technologies, have been slow to materialise. Using a
British Standards based approach, the Council will therefore:
- review the structure and organization of services, including the information collected,
with a view to exploring the scope to share information in a secure and trusted
software environment, providing the foundation for a new approach;
- seek to pilot new innovative approaches, including those encouraging channel shift
and demand management, to understand the costs and benefits of innovation, the
risks associated and the means to mitigate them, in order to develop the case for
wider adoption;

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Smart City Strategy

- establish a team dedicated to transformation, Digital Greenwich, reporting directly

to the CEO, to work with service delivery teams to identify opportunities for
innovation, to initiate new pilots, to identify good practice at home and abroad, and
help to drive the transformation agenda.
(iv) 
Transforming the Greenwich Economy: The Borough has a particularly strong visitor
economy thanks to its royal, scientific, maritime and military traditions and, more
recently, the establishment of O2, the world’s most active entertainments arena, with
London’s only cruise liner terminal to be opened nearby in 2017. However, as noted
earlier, the local economy tends to be structured around low productivity service
sectors, which will become increasingly vulnerable to computerisation. In addition to
making established businesses more resilient to technological change, we also need to
encourage the growth of high value digital SMEs. Along with the activities described
above, of developing a strategy to transform the connectivity of the Borough, the
Council will:
- raise business awareness of the e-Business Programme to make more Greenwich
businesses digitally skilled and look for other funding opportunities to develop
complementary programmes;
- promote the Greenwich Digital Innovation Centre and the Digital Skills Centre in
Ravensbourne which provide space, knowledge transfer and skills/business support
programmes to Greenwich entrepreneurs;
- Work with partners to develop the concept of a cloud based data integration and
Urban Innovation Platform and, together with the commissioning of pilot projects in
support of the Council’s objectives for service transformation, encourage innovative
SMEs to locate in Greenwich to be closer to this hub of innovation;
- play an active role in helping Greenwich businesses internationalise through EU
programmes and London’s own Export Programme;
- work with the Greenwich Education Business Partnership, and training providers,
to promote stronger links between schools and digital businesses to encourage the
greater uptake of ICT Apprenticeships and promote work experience opportunities
in the sector;
- collaborate with the University of Greenwich and Ravensbourne to create
opportunities for graduates and local residents to develop new business start-ups and
support incubation programmes.

Conclusion
The Council believes that the above programme of activities is coherent, ambitious and yet achievable.
It will, in the spirit of transparency, report on progress annually.

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 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy

Section 1

Introduction

9
 1. Introduction

This chapter provides a context for the Council’s smart city strategy by setting out some of the key
challenges the Council will face in the years ahead. It goes on to describe how it proposes to adopt a smart
city approach to addressing these challenges, the important characteristics of such an approach, and how
this report is structured.

Background
1.01. Greenwich, situated in SE London, with a current population of around 275,000, is one of
London’s 33 Boroughs. It has a long history associated with defence, as a result of its early growth
around Woolwich Dockyard, founded by Henry VIII in 1512, and the subsequent development of
the Royal Arsenal which, at its peak in WWI, employed around 80,000 people; with science, since
the establishment of the Royal Observatory in 1675, in the reign of Charles II, which eventually
led to it becoming the “home of world time” when its position on the Prime Meridian was
agreed in 1884; with innovation, industry and trade, with the growth of Britain’s submarine cable
industry in the 19th Century and the establishment of the country’s largest coal gas plant on
the Greenwich Peninsula in 1886, subsequently converted into the world’s largest oil gasification
plant in the 1960s; and with architecture, thanks to Sir Christopher Wren’s grand vision and design
for the Royal Naval Hospital, constructed in the early 18th Century, on the site of a former
Royal palace and birthplace of Henry VIII, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I. Today, it is perhaps best
known as a visitor destination, with its maritime heritage designated a World Heritage Site, the
O2 Arena, constructed for the Millennium celebrations, the most popular entertainment venue
in the world and, by 2017, it will be host to London’s only cruise liner terminal.

Future Challenges
1.02 Like all local authorities, Greenwich Council is required by legislation to perform a wide range
of statutory duties and it also undertakes a large number of discretionary activities to maintain
and enhance the quality of life in the Borough. In fulfilling these duties the Council faces many
challenges in the years ahead, which will drive change, in particular:
• A rapidly rising population, with a changing age demographic: the Borough, along with its
neighbours in East London, is one of London’s growth Boroughs to accommodate the increase
in London’s population over the next ten to fifteen years. The anticipated 30% growth in
population (see Table 2) will be accommodated through the development of brownfield sites
for housing , housing renewal and increased densities; this will impose further pressure on an
already strained infrastructure. Furthermore, as people live longer, Greenwich’s population,
over the age of 80, is expected to increase by 70% between 2010 and 2028 and this will
impose new challenges and rising costs to meet their needs.
• Rising expectations regarding service delivery in a world of reduced public expenditure: as
digitalization transforms service delivery in the private sector, citizens will reasonably expect
similar improvements in public services. However, as the Government seeks to reduce public
expenditure, so Government grants in support of local activities will continue to reduce1.
For Greenwich, these reductions are expected to be in excess of £70 million over the next
five years. All Councils will need to review their priorities and develop a new relationship with
their citizens.
1
http://www.local.gov.uk/documents/10180/5854661/L14-340+Future+funding+-+initial+draft.pdf/1854420d-1ce0-49c5-8515-062dccca2c70

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Smart City Strategy

• Employment and Technological change: Greenwich has a wide range of incomes and wealth
where relatively wealthy Wards co-exist with some of the poorest in London. Further
developments in digital technology hold the prospect of increased disruption to traditional
business sectors and the loss of low skill, simple service tasks. Recent studies have estimated
that over 30% of jobs are at risk and that low paid, low skilled jobs are by far the most
vulnerable.2 To ensure employment for its residents and to provide a source of revenue for its
expenditure, in the form of non-domestic rates, the Council will need to maintain its effort to
secure business regeneration and growth. As noted above, this same technological change also
affords the opportunity to transform the way services are delivered and in the way citizens can
engage with the Council and their own communities.
• Improving environmental quality and further reductions in emissions: while the Borough
has performed as well as other Outer London Boroughs in reducing emissions and creating
a sustainable environment, further effort is required. Nationally, in April 2015, the Supreme
Court ordered the Government to publish, by the end of the year, its plans to reduce air
pollution, which has been in breach of EU standards – the EU air quality directive – since 2010.

Table 1. The Changing Greenwich Demographic

2010 2014 2018 2024 2028

Age 0-3 17,204 18,236 19,113 19,592 19,351

Age 4-15 38,353 41,620 46,950 52,408 52,943

Age 16-64 173,691 186,558 201,893 221,471 228,526

Age 65-84 22,490 24,668 26,608 30,894 34,808

Age +85 3,742 4,019 4,453 5,581 6,327

1.04 In 2013, the Council published its Core Strategy, which articulated a vision for the Borough and
set out its plans for addressing the significant challenges that the Borough faces over the next
fifteen years. The focus of the Core Strategy is the spatial development of the Borough and,
in particular, to accommodate a substantial growth in housing to meet the Mayor of London’s
targets; the need to develop a built environment of mixed use, where employment opportunities
can be found within the Borough, where accommodation meets the changing demographic and
is affordable and resilient to the risk of flooding, and where citizens can readily use alternative
modes of transport to the car.
1.05 At the same time, there has been a surge in interest in how developments in digital technology,
which is transforming operations in the private sector, might play a similar role in the delivery of
public services. The concept of smart cities has emerged as a policy priority for Government3
and the European Union4; a Foresight Programme led by the Government’s Chief Scientific
2
http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/uk-futures/london-futures-agiletown.pdf
3
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/246019/bis-13-1209-smart-cities-background-paper-digital.pdf
4
http://ec.europa.eu/eip/smartcities/

11
 Adviser has been established to report on the future of cities5; the British Standards Institution
(BSI)6 and the International Standards Organisation (ISO)7 have adopted a strategic approach
to formalizing good practice in the form of standards; a number of city networks have been
established to share experience8; and a number of reports have been published by think tank9
and consultancies10 on the scale of the challenge and the opportunities for cities and the business
sector. More broadly, an analysis of the drivers of innovation and growth in the USA and EU has
underlined the important role which digitalization is playing in generating economic growth11.
1.06 The Council’s Vision, set out in the Core Strategy, highlighted the importance of digital and
creative industries and advanced manufacturing as growth sectors. The Council has already
invested in creating an emerging Digital Hub on the Greenwich Peninsula, and helped a wide
range of Greenwich businesses to cope with digitalization through its e-Business Programme12.
There are now almost 1,000 ICT businesses in the Borough and over 600 businesses will benefit
from the Council’s e-Business programme.
1.07 However, as Table 3 below illustrates, the composition of businesses within the Borough
remains significantly skewed towards low value added service sectors. Many sectors prevalent
in the Greenwich economy are vulnerable to developments in the digital economy. According
to the research commissioned by Deloitte’s (op cit), some sectors, such as those related to
the visitor economy, the arts, education, and health/social care, are unlikely to be replaced
by computerization but others, such as sales, logistics and service administration will become
increasingly vulnerable to technology change.
Table 2. The Size and Productivity of Business Sectors in Greenwich

1.08 Furthermore, as Table 3 below illustrates, an analysis of the data relating to Job Seekers
Allowance shows that, while unemployment and long term unemployment is falling within the
Borough, those occupations defined in the Deloitte’s study undertaken by Frey and Osborne as
5
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/future-of-cities
6
http://www.bsigroup.com/en-gb/smart-cities/
7
http://smartcitiescouncil.com/article/dissecting-iso-37120-why-new-smart-city-standard-good-news-cities
8
http://cityprotocol.org
9
http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/small%20pieces%20loosely%20joined.pdf
10
http://www.arup.com/smart
11
http://www.lisboncouncil.net/publication/publication/108-productivity-and-digitalisation-in-europe.html
12
http://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/news/article/430/free_support_to_help_local_businesses_get_online

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Smart City Strategy

most vulnerable to technology change, are precisely those where people are finding it hardest to
find work.
Table 3. Long Term Unemployment by Occupation
1.09 But a critical question is whether the UK, and Greenwich in particular, is well placed to seize the

opportunities arising from digital technology. A recent House of Lords report on the UK’s Digital
Future13 signalled that, despite London’s growth in digital businesses its digital infrastructure was
one of the worst among capitals in Europe, and pointed to the shortfall in digital skills which was
acting as a brake on business growth.
1.10 It is timely, therefore, to complement the Core Strategy and other relevant strategies with a
Smart City Strategy, aimed at making Greenwich a “smarter” borough, indeed London’s “Smart
Borough”. In so doing, this strategy seeks to address the challenges confronting our communities
and to set out an approach, which will help the Borough to meet the challenge of the increase in
population in a sustainable way, to provide resilience to unexpected events , to transform public
services within the Borough and to create a business environment that not only improves the
resilience of established firms in offering a wide range of employment opportunities, but also
fosters the development of a cluster of emerging digital businesses that will create higher value
jobs and put the Borough at the forefront of the digital economy.
1.11 However, it should be emphasized at the outset that digital technologies are not a “silver bullet”
and “smartness” is not an end in itself. Neighbourhoods are complex ecosystems which are
subject to external shocks and evolve over time and, to maintain their harmonious development,
there is a need to draw on a range of policy interventions. As is recognized in the Core Strategy,
communities reside in a given location and, to accommodate the significant rise in population,
its diversity and changing demographic, and to address mobility in a more densely populated
environment, it is essential to optimize the use of that space and its physical infrastructure, and
create a desirable environment for citizens and businesses alike. Here digital technologies can help,
not only in the design of the new built environment, but also in monitoring how the infrastructure
– old and new - is being used. For example, technology can monitor the flow of traffic and the
energy efficiency of buildings, and in engaging with citizens on how it might be improved.

13
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldselect/lddigital/111/111.pdf

13
Foundations/Characteristics of a Smart City
1.12 Thus, a truly smart city, as reflected in this strategy, is one that recognizes the evolving nature of
urban communities and the systemic nature of change, and seeks to develop a holistic response
which ensures that future development is innovative, sustainable and resilient to external shocks
by:
- providing clear leadership and drive, while engaging with citizens and businesses in a transparent
and democratic manner;
- developing a vision and strategy for the city which is informed by leading international
experience and, where possible, builds on its past, its strong sense of community, a respect for
its natural environment, and optimizes the use of space/the built environment and resources in
the face of demographic, industrial and technology change;
- providing a modern, digitally enabled infrastructure and connectivity that is globally competitive;
- developing a culture of sharing information which supplies users and service providers with the
real time information that they need to take informed decisions, which also has a predictive
capability, to ensure optimum use of current capacity and the means to plan more effectively
for the future;
- offering a business environment, which allows a wide range of businesses to flourish and
encourages new high value firms to locate in the city;
- providing an education and skills infrastructure that offers all citizens the opportunity to
participate in the digital economy and to secure well paid employment, regardless of sector;
- has the mechanisms, resources and culture in place to support agility and innovation within its
own public services, that is at the forefront of good practice i.e. a “learning organization”, able
to manage risk and develop new approaches in a timely and cost-effective manner, in order to
deliver high quality services that engage with and meet the needs of the citizen, rather than
organizational convenience and traditions;
- in short, making the city a most desirable and vibrant place to live, work or visit.

Our Objectives and Principles

1.13 Our aim is to display the above attributes and characteristics so that Greenwich becomes
recognized as London’s “smart” and innovative Borough and able to deliver resource-efficient,
low-carbon, healthy and liveable neighbourhoods within the Borough, where citizens enjoy
improved social and economic opportunities, while feeling integrated and part of the decision
making processes affecting the environments and communities they live in, and where services
are delivered efficiently and reflect the needs and desires of citizens. Above all, it is that
Greenwich is a most desirable and vibrant place to live, work or visit.
1.14 Our approach is based on the key principles of:
- inclusivity: this is a strategy aimed to benefit all citizens, communities and neighbourhoods;
- citizen centric: we aim to transform citizen engagement in the Borough to ensure our policies
put citizens at the forefront of our policy development and meet their needs;
- transparency: citizens will be informed of change and its outcomes, and information will be
made accessible for the benefit of our citizens;
- standards and good practice: Greenwich will follow the principles of a “learning organization”,
open to new ideas and an exemplar in the use of standards and good management practice -
evidence based and outcomes driven.

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Smart City Strategy

1.15 To achieve this, the Council’s digital strategy focuses on four key elements, which form the main
chapters of this report. These are:
- Smart Neighbourhoods and Communities
- Infrastructure for Change
- An Innovative and Smart Council;
- Economic Growth and Higher Value Jobs.
1.16 But, as implied above, we need not only to achieve excellent outcomes in each of the elements,
but also ensure they have a coherence and synergy, such that the whole is greater than the
sum of the parts. To ensure this, the Council has established a small team, Digital Greenwich,
reporting directly to the CEO to help establish a modern digital infrastructure; promote a
more dynamic local economy; work with local stakeholders to transform local communities;
exercise a horizon scanning function to identify new opportunities to innovate, and facilitate
a more integrated approach to service delivery, working closely with the Council’s policy and
service delivery teams and potential sources of innovation, to place Greenwich at the forefront
of public service innovation and good practice. This is a journey – for both the Council and the
Borough – which will be measured and transparent, the key milestones of which are set out in
the concluding chapter, “The Way Forward”.

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Smart City Strategy

Section 2

Smart Neighbourhoods
and Communities

17
2. Smart Neighbourhoods and Communities

This chapter describes the very different and evolving nature of Greenwich’s communities,
neighbourhoods and high streets, and how these will change further as the population grows, as the
Borough’s industrial structure moves to higher value added sectors, and as technology and real time
information alters citizen behaviour and, potentially, the use of urban spaces. It concludes by noting
the importance for the Council of developing a better understanding of how technology will impact
upon the Borough’s urban form and the need to work with developers and partners, that are active in
Greenwich, to ensure that all take account of digital technologies to make for a sustainable and more
resilient Borough.

Background
2.01 Greenwich is not a single generic entity but a series of linked neighbourhoods and communities
with their own distinctive characteristics. As a selection of statistics drawn from the London
Data Store’s Ward Profiles shows, Greenwich’s communities, or Wards, have very different
profiles (see chart). It is a central tenet of the Council’s policy that this smart city strategy
should be focused on the needs of all citizens and the communities they live in, and address
their different needs and reflect the special characteristics of each neighbourhood and district.
While the strategy is for the Borough, it is within local neighbourhoods that the benefits and
opportunities arising from the strategy will be proven. The approach, therefore, needs to reflect
the local circumstances and aspirations of local communities and their neighbourhoods.
2.02 But raw statistics alone barely convey the complexity of local communities and how they evolve
over time, in particular the interplay between the physical environment, economic development
in response to technology and market drivers, and the social forces at play, as people with
different skills and attributes move into and out of the area. Greenwich, and its individual Wards,
has experienced massive change in its industrial structure over time. For example, the expansion
of the Royal Arsenal (to around 80,000 employees in WW1) and other industries, such as
telephones and telephone cable, in the early part of the 20th Century was followed by sharp
contraction, to the point of closure in the 1960s, that had a devastating impact on Woolwich and
Charlton.
2.03 The ebb and flow of industry in the Borough has had a profound impact on land use, demand
for housing and the urban infrastructure. Today, the knowledge-based economy employs
more people in the Royal Borough than manufacturing. The importance and presence of the
knowledge-based economy across the Capital is already considerable and will only grow in the
coming decades. The transition in Greenwich towards a knowledge-based economy will bring
not only changes on the economic structure of the Borough, but also on its urban form – the
more knowledge intensive the economy becomes, the higher the concentration and intensity
of uses needs to be. An understanding of the nature, dynamics and requirements of this new
economy, as well as the relationships between the different actors, is critical if cities are to
adapt, accommodate and capitalize on this trend. Digital technologies provide the tools to help
understand and manage the impact the transition to a digital economy is having on the Borough
and, more importantly, to inform the design of the Borough’s built environment to make it
resilient to change.
2.04 Successful cities are remarkably resilient. They adapt to external factors, accommodating
changes, with districts taking on new roles, and buildings new uses. Indeed, a key element

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Smart City Strategy

Ward Profiles

Abbey Blackheath Coldharbour Eltham Eltham Eltham Glyndon Greenwich

Charlton and New
Wood Westcombe Eltham North South West West

% aged 65+ 10.2 15.1 11.2 18.1 18.5 15.7 11.6 7.6 7.9

pop density 5,722 6,048 7,050 5,180 4,789 2,717 4,667 10,441 6,054
per sq km

Male life
expectancy 76.0 80.7 76.3 78.4 81.1 79.8 76.6 75.3 79.4

% obesity
29.5 23.3 27.3 22.7 14.4 25.4 20.6 24.3 25.9
in Yr 6

Emp. Rate
(16-64) 63.6 75.5 67.7 70.7 75.1 64.9 64.0 62.5 68.6

% H/holds
socially 38.9 22.4 41.1 23.5 17.0 22.4 44.1 41.4 35.7
rented
% JSA
Claimants 5.9 2.5 5.3 3.6 2.7 3.9 4.7 6.3 3.7

% with no
Qualifications 25.3 12.1 20.8 25.4 20.0 21.5 30.8 21.4 12.8

% with Level 24.2 57.5 37.2 23.4 31.8 25.1 21.2 28.6 49.9
4 and above
Est. Median
H/hold 25,104 56,066 30,964 36.672 45,608 35,041 27,422 25,006 41,553
income

Kidbrooke
with Middle Park Penin- Shooters Thamesmead Woolwich Woolwich
and Sutcliffe sula Plumstead Hill Moorings Common Riverside
Hornfair

% aged 65+ 12.5 15.7 6.2 9.3 13.8 5.1 6.2 6.3

pop density
per sq km 5,854 4,046 4,156 6,854 3,487 4,219 6,904 6.359

Male life
expectancy 79.7 79.2 78.0 78.4 80.3 76.4 76.7 75.9

% obesity
in Yr 6 24.3 24.1 19.4 27.3 23.0 28.4 23.5 26.6

Emp. Rate
(16-64) 67.3 65.6 74.2 63.9 69.5 62.9 60.5 64.7

% H/holds
socially 32.1 37.3 30.6 27.3 19.5 38.0 50.0 50.0
rented
% JSA
Claimants 4.4 5.9 2.8 7.2 3.4 6.0 8.8 7.2

% with no
Qualifications 23.7 25.5 15.0 21.6 19.4 18.7 21.8 19.9

% with Level 30.8 29.6 49.5 25.2 31.3 32.4 26.7 35.2
4 and above
Est. Median
H/hold 30,278 30,643 40,187 25,672 36,161 27,478 23,578 26,231
income

19
 in a successful city is its flexibility, allowing the city, its neighbourhoods and buildings to
evolve and adapt to future changes. Changes in the built environment in London are
self-evident – from the intensification and concentration of uses at Clerkenwell and
Shoreditch – where financial, creative and media industries cluster and coexist with
housing and retail, to the changing nature of our high streets. Digital technologies are
themselves driving some, possibly facilitating all, of these changes and digital technologies
themselves provide the tools to help understand and manage the impact the transition
of our cities, ad to inform the design of the built environment and its composition. These
tools are data driven: better data allows us to model the impact of new developments,
as well as demographic, social, economic and environmental factors, on our
neighbourhoods. This in turn allows us to make better decisions to support the objective
of creating vibrant, sustainable and balanced neighbourhoods.
2.05 Thus, technology creates opportunities to do things in new ways and meet long standing
challenges. But these changes need to be anticipated and planned for. For example, in
the future, automated and electric vehicles, accompanied by an intelligent modal shift,
will allow for more efficient use of infrastructure, safer and cleaner neighbourhoods. The
decisions we are taking today need to anticipate the impact this will have on the built
environment if the benefits are to be fully achieved. The use of technology will help us
understand and model the changes that are required.
2.06 In thinking systemically about the impact of new digital technologies on communities, and
the 34% increase in population that is projected from 2010-2028, new technologies and
tools will allow the Council to consider more fundamentally how neighbourhoods should
be designed and developed to accommodate changes and opportunities that technology
will create. This creates an opportunity to shape how neighbourhoods evolve, and
address concerns such as road safety, mobility, use of natural resources, and air quality.
Moreover, technology can influence the interaction between different land uses, the
infrastructure and people, and also help us to shape rather than respond to events. This
requires a good understanding of the dynamics within neighbourhoods and how digital
technologies will impact upon existing systems, and the urban form and function of our
neighbourhoods.
2.07 In designing urban spaces for the future, the Borough can benefit from understanding
how digital technologies may impact upon the use of that space, and potentially improve
the current existing city systems and supporting infrastructure. For example, new
technologies have changed organisations’ working dynamics, culture and protocols –
allowing an increasing number of members of staff to work from home or enabling
teams from different organisations to meet online, across different Boroughs within a
city, or even across different time zones. By transforming the digital infrastructure in
Greenwich, we raise the prospect of an increasing number of digital micro businesses
offering a wide range of apps/products, which will enable utilities, citizens and other
businesses to take informed decisions on how to make an optimal use of time and
resources e.g. making more intelligent use of transport - whether and when to travel and
what mode of transport. Thus, the Council will seek to understand the impact a more
informed and responsive society might have on, for example:
(i) t he demand not only for local services and digital infrastructure, but also leisure and
recreational space;
(ii) t he Borough’s mobility and accessibility patterns – which may help deliver the
Borough’s modal shift towards more sustainable mobility systems – walking, cycling
and electric vehicle sharing schemes;

20
 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy
Case Study: Thamesmead – smart city thinking to regenerate a neighbourhood

Thamesmead
The regeneration of Thamesmead represents a Peabody has developed a 30-year strategic
rare opportunity to embed smart city principles framework for Thamesmead, which considers
into a New Town for the 21st century. The housing, communities, jobs, culture, business,
transformation will be led by Peabody, one of landscape, place management, tenure, inward
London’s largest housing associations, which owns investment, land use and transport. However, it is
much of the land, housing stock, and commercial important to keep a balance between the long-
and community space in the town. term vision and the reality of the current lived
Working closely with the Royal Borough of experience in Thamesmead. So, as well as building
Greenwich, Peabody is exploring a ‘smart city’ new homes, Peabody will invest in existing homes,
approach to the regeneration in its bid to position infrastructure and services to improve quality of life
Thamesmead as one of the top three growth areas for existing residents. This includes protecting and
in London. strengthening Thamesmead’s unique character and
assets, such as its waterways, green space and nature
Originally conceived as a new town to address reserve.
the housing crisis after the Second World War,
Thamesmead has experienced mixed fortunes Crossrail arrives at Abbey Wood in 2018 and, in the
since the first families moved there in 1968. years ahead, Thamesmead will offer exciting new
Covering an area the size of central London, with opportunities as an attractive and accessible part of
45,000 residents and a young population, it has London – a great place to live, work and visit.
the potential to become one of London’s most
dynamic living environments, with great facilities
and a thriving, mixed community.

21
 (iii) the Borough’s land use patterns – which may be informed by a reduced demand for
vehicle space, and ultimately on the Borough’s spatial structure, density and mixed
use patterns. Moreover, change in one area will have impacts on others, giving even
greater emphasis to the need for a holistic approach and thereby strengthen our
understanding of the interconnected nature of decisions.
2.08 This evolution of our neighbourhoods, and their response to economic, social and
technology change, is perhaps best illustrated on our high streets. The rise of the digital
economy has brought about further change as, increasingly, customers are searching
online for the best bargains and arranging for delivery or collection at a time of their
convenience (which in turn is impacting on transport). And it is not only the sale of
goods that is being transformed by digital technology: foreign travel and tourism, the use
of taxi services, music and entertainment, news media and, increasingly, how we search
for property and employment are just some of the sectors whose presence on the high
street has been radically altered, if not removed altogether.
2.09 But high streets remain a focal point for all communities – and footfall and spending
an indicator of their vibrancy. As some types of business move out so others move in
to take their place, although the recent financial crisis had a significant impact on take
up/occupancy. It is this combination of technological disruption and the flatlining of
real growth in incomes that has given rise to a growing focus on the high street as a
social asset. A recent report published by the Digital High Street Advisory Board14, has
emphasized the importance, in an increasingly dynamic digital world, of small retailers
embracing digital technologies, not least to raise their profile and engage customers with
compelling offers. Importantly, two key recommendations in the report reinforce the
thrust of our own smart city strategy, namely that the Council should seek to transform
the digital infrastructure of neighbourhoods, and raise the level of digital skills among
citizens, SMEs and the voluntary services and charities within the community. These
points are addressed in later chapters.
2.10 This is particularly important with the development of the “hyper-local” concept, i.e. the
ability, thanks to digital technology, to focus information on a well-defined area to meet
the needs of that community, and of visitors to the area15. Much of the activity to date
has focused on news media and the ability of retailers, using location based technologies,
to target residents or visitors in an area with special offers, or simply to inform people
with similar profiles that they are in close proximity.
2.11 This is of particular importance to West Greenwich, Eltham, the Peninsula and, in the
future, Woolwich, where visitor experience is important to the local economy. However,
the concept extends well beyond the world of retail, and has the power to engage
citizens on a wide range of social issues impacting upon their lives. For example, for
many years, a local news site, King’s Cross Environment16, has offered an independent
platform for the local community to air concerns, particularly about transport issues, and
to advertise or comment on local activities. On a national scale, mySociety established
FixMyStreet17 in 2007, now used by Greenwich Council, which provides a platform for
members of the public to identify (with mobile phone cameras) and report specific
incidences of pot holes, broken pavements, graffiti, fly-tipping, and the need for waste
collection, which could be located on a map and reported to the relevant local authority.
14
http://thegreatbritishhighstreet.co.uk/pdf/Digital_High_Street_Report/The-Digital-High-Street-Report-2020.pdf
15
https://www.nesta.org.uk/sites/default/files/here_and_now_uk_hyperlocal_media_today.pdf
16
http://kingscrossenvironment.com
17
https://www.fixmystreet.com

22
 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy

2.12 The question for local authorities over the next few years is how can digital technologies
and, in particular, the concept of “hyper local” be used to engage with citizens and
help to improve the quality of life in neighbourhoods and communities. The Council
recognizes that organisations working at the heart of our communities are well placed to
help us develop a more citizen centric approach. The strategy will provide a framework
to enable us to seek out those answers from a community perspective.

The Greenwich Vision and Approach

2.13 This is a significant agenda within the broader goal of delivering resource-efficient, low-
carbon, healthy and liveable neighbourhoods within the Borough, where citizens enjoy
improved social and economic opportunities, while feeling part of a wider community
and part of the decision making processes affecting the environments and communities
they live in, and where services are delivered efficiently and reflect the needs and desires
of citizens. The Council recognizes that the design of its neighbourhoods, and their
facilities, are fundamental to the way those communities operate. This is not a centralist,
top-down model of what is good for people (or their neighbourhoods) but creating the
conditions for communities themselves to shape their environment and neighbourhoods.
Thus, while recognising the role of technology – not least Building Information Modeling,
discussed in later chapters - as a key enabler, communities and urban spaces will face the
greatest impact: it is well designed urban spaces that will accommodate and shape this
change, and communities will both, drive it and benefit from it. Hence, both need to be
front and centre of our strategy.
2.14 To that end, there is a need to develop expertise in how a digitally-led approach can
add value to existing cityscapes and assist in the delivery of better designed, “smarter”
built environments as well as more informed communities, to achieve the goal, of a
more sustainable and resilient Greenwich. The Council cannot do this alone and so,
through a commitment to smart urban design as a precursor to economic and social
transformation, the Council will endeavor to attract a highly qualified group of urban
professionals – a cluster of excellence with diverse urban expertise – to work together
to define, design and develop specific integration tools and frameworks, to develop that
more profound understanding of cities and the context for their development, and thus
be able to define the most appropriate strategies and interventions.
2.15 This knowledge is at the apex of smart city concepts and strategies. It is replicable and,
therefore, eminently tradeable, particularly in a world where urbanization is projected to
grow rapidly over the next thirty years, and where established urban centres are in need
of renewal.

2.16 To achieve the Council’s goals, it will:

- facilitate wider discussion about the impact of technology on the built environment
and how the ability to collect and integrate data to better understand and model the
impact of changes on districts and neighbourhoods.
- work with local developers and stakeholders, to embed the principles set out in the
strategy, specifically to embed world class connectivity and to anticipate, promote
and shape the changes to our neighbourhoods and communities, being brought
about by digital technologies. This will include promoting smart city principles
and requirements in planning guidelines. Furthermore, it will consider how the

23
 Community Infrastructure Levy might be used more effectively in this context. It will
also ensure that new buildings are compliant with the EU Directive on broadband
connectivity (2014/61/EU ).
- work with others to develop pilot projects that identify and bring together key
data, and allow for the analysis of data to improve understanding of the built
environment and the impact of developments and demographic, social, economic and
environmental change on neighbourhoods.
- give a particular focus to high streets and to the infrastructure and digital skills
required, to enable retailers to exploit digital technologies to best effect (see
Chapters 4 and 5). In that context, the ideas presented in the Digital High Street
Report on measuring the Borough’s capability - through the High Street Digital
Health Index - will be explored further.

24
 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy

Section 3

Infrastructure for Change

25
 3. Infrastructure for Change

This chapter describes how a fixed and mobile ultra-fast broadband network has become a source
of competitive advantage in the struggle to create more dynamic business and social environments,
and is also necessary for the innovative delivery of services. It sets out the Council’s commitment to
develop a strategy to deliver such a network. The chapter goes on to describe the importance of the
Internet of Things and Building Information Modelling in developing a better understanding of the built
environment, how it is performing and how it is being used by society, and the council’s plans to adopt
these technologies/approaches to create a smart infrastructure in the Borough.

Improving Connectivity within the Borough

3.01. Just as competitiveness in energy intensive sectors is driven by access to low cost energy
providers, so competitiveness in the global digital economy is driven by the quality and price
of connectivity, for users as well as those creating rich media and digital services. In order to
develop a competitive digital economy in Greenwich, which will provide high value employment
for its citizens, and to transform public service delivery, the Borough needs world class
connectivity at prices that are internationally competitive.
3.02 Ofcom monitors UK performance against its leading European cities and publishes the results of
its analysis in the form of the European Broadband Scorecard. The latest report was published
in December 201418. The findings suggest that, overall, the UK’s digital infrastructure compares
favourably with four comparator countries: France, Germany, Spain and Italy. The UK leads on
comparisons of choice, take-up and usage, and is in first or second place for a range of indicators
relating to price.
3.03. However, in its report on the UK’s digital future, “Make or Break: The UK’s Digital Future”,
the House of Lords highlighted the international comparison of broadband speeds published
by Ookla19. According to Ookla’s analysis of broadband and mobile upload/download speeds,
London’s performance is one of the poorest among European capitals (26th out of 33) and well
below that of a range of other British and European cities.
3.04. It is clear that, within the main trading regions of the world, competition between cities is
emerging in the form of the digital infrastructure that the city offers. The “1 Gigabit City” is a
phenomenon that has been developing quickly, with Seoul, Hong Kong and Tokyo emerging
as leaders in the Far East, Chattanooga, Kansas City and Lafayette (Silicon Bayou) in the USA,
and Zurich, Bucharest and Stockholm in Europe. The impact of 1 Gigabit symmetric speeds
on economic development has been striking. In 2014, the Lafayette Utility System (LUS) gigabit
network attracted firms to the city and is estimated to have created 1,300 high quality jobs20.
In Chattanooga, a city with a population of less than 200,000, the network was developed by
the energy utility, with a prime objective of reducing power outages, but it has created around
1,000 jobs and attracted $50 million of venture capital to fund new technology businesses21.
In a comparison between 1 Gigabit Stockholm and Copenhagen, the impact on business
location has been striking. As the ability to handle large quantities of data swiftly has become
increasingly important, more and more international enterprises have chosen to locate their
Scandinavian headquarters in Stockholm: in 2009, Stockholm had 69% more establishments than

18
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/cmr/cmr14/icmr/EU_Scorecard_2014.pdf
19
http://explorer.netindex.com/maps
20
http://muninetworks.org/content/three-new-companies-move-silicon-bayou
21
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/30/chattanooga-gig-high-speed-internet-tech-boom

26
 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy

118 MAKE OR BREAK: THE UK’S DIGITAL FUTURE

APPENDIx
Average 6: LEAGUE
Broadband TABLE
Download Speeds OF EUROPEAN
(Annex CAPITAL
6 “Make or Break: CITYFuture,
The UK’s Digital
AVERAGE
HL Paper 111) DOWNLOAD BROADBAND SPEEDS

January 2015
Rank Capital City Country
speeds (Mbps)
1 Bucharest Romania 80.14
2 Paris France 78.6
3 Vilnius Lithuania 59.99
4 Stockholm Sweden 59.46
5 Reykjavik Iceland 49.95
6 Bern Switzerland 49.37
7 Copenhagen Denmark 47.81
8 Bratislava Slovakia 44.47
9 Riga Latvia 42.9
10 Helsinki Finland 42.79
11 Vienna Austria 42.41
12 Oslo Norway 40.25
13 Budapest Hungary 40.1
14 Luxembourg Luxembourg 40.03
15 Dublin Ireland 39.43
16 Amsterdam Netherlands 39.41
17 Tallinn Estonia 39.34
18 Sofia Bulgaria 38
19 Prague Czech Republic 37.04
20 Lisbon Portugal 34.73
21 Madrid Spain 33.26
22 Kiev Ukraine 32.76
23 Berlin Germany 27.2
24 Brussels Belgium 26.72
25 Warsaw Poland 25.97
26 London United Kingdom 25.44
27 Minsk Belarus 17.79
28 Sarajevo Bosnia & Herzegovina 13.41
29 Zagreb Croatia 11.74
30 Rome Italy 11.65
31 Belgrade Serbia 10.91
32 Athens Greece 9.76
33 Nicosia Cyprus 9.11
Source: Ookla, ‘Net Index Explorer’: http://explorer.netindex.com/maps# [accessed 16 January 2015]. Data
correct as of 16 January 2015. Data not available for European cities not included.

27
 Copenhagen (compared to 10% in 2006). More broadly the investment has resulted in savings
to the municipality and the opportunity to transform public services, the ability to roll out 4G
mobile services swiftly, and a rise in the quality of jobs. Furthermore, like other 1 Gigabit cities,
Stockholm will be well placed to roll out the next wave of mobile infrastructure, 5G.
3.05 The concept of the 1 Gigabit City, powered by fibre to the home, is also catching on in the UK.
Small to medium sized towns and cities such as Peterborough, York, Aberdeen and Edinburgh
have begun to attract private sector investment in widespread fibre deployment to homes and
small businesses.
3.06 Greenwich is also a strong candidate for an urban 5G trial, building on a commitment to fibre,
which will be needed to backhaul the wireless network traffic. By focusing on low latency
network applications, Greenwich can build a faster smart city infrastructure, and demonstrate
the business case of this emerging technology.

The Greenwich Vision

3.07 A fast, affordable digital infrastructure is central to the Council’s objectives – for the economy,
for service transformation, for stronger neighbourhoods and communities. In Greenwich, where
micro-businesses, with 1-10 employees, account for by far the largest share of employment
and GVA, where 18 million visitors each year expect to be able to upload relevant information
instantly and to be able to connect with family and friends, where a key objective is to transform
public services for the benefit of all citizens, e.g. through pervasive public Wi-Fi services; and to
be at the forefront of 5G roll out, in order to strengthen the digital cluster located here and to
improve the quality of jobs and income, it is vital that connectivity is competitive and “future
proof”.
3.08 Our aim is that the Greenwich of the future will offer its community, and visitors, connectivity on
a par with other cities in Europe, at an affordable price.

The Council will therefore:

- conduct an Open Market Review to identify, from private sector service providers,
the existing and planned infrastructure for the Borough;
- consult network equipment providers over their technology roadmaps;
- carry out an audit of its own assets and contracts related to ICT to obtain a full
picture of how it might work with partners and identify any potential barriers to
progress;
- consult private sector users, in order to form a view on future demand;
- consider the evidence, in consultation with the Regulator, DCMS and the EU
Commission, and set out its strategy in the Spring of 2016.
3.09 The ability of devices to communicate is already transforming industrial operations and supply
chains, the delivery of services, and life in the home; it will transform the delivery of public
services as well. For example, at a simple level, embedded sensors will enable the remote testing
of assets, such as street lighting, helping identify when lights are close to failing, rather than after
they have failed. More sophisticated applications of digital technologies include a combination
of sensor and communication technologies and this would enable a whole range of applications
including:

28
 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy

- a far higher proportion of those in need to be cared for at home;

- the ability to balance supply and demand from a range of renewable sources to meet the peaks
and troughs of demand in a world of variable supply;
- the ability to automate facilities management in public buildings, with improvements in energy
efficiency and occupancy; and
- traffic to be modelled, monitored and managed more efficiently, including smart parking (where
mobile apps identify space becoming available, followed by mobile payment).
3.10 The Government has recently issued two reports setting out its vision and strategy for Internet
of Things (IoT) and BIM respectively:
- “The Internet of Things: making the most of the Second Digital Revolution” by the Chief
Scientific Adviser (CSA), Sir Mark Walport22.
- “Level 3 Building Information Modelling – Strategic Plan.” by Digital Built Britain23.
3.11 As intelligence is built into all aspects of the infrastructure so the number of connected
devices is rising exponentially. Estimates of growth vary widely and are being revised upwards,
because of the emerging nature of the market. In his report on the IoT, the Chief Scientific
Advisor summarized the range of estimates to be between 20 billion to 100 billion connected
devices by 2020 from the current figure of around 14 billion objects. One of the authoritative
commentators, Machina Research24, whose estimates are at the lower end of the scale, forecasts
that, by 2020, global connectivity will have reached 22 billion devices. Of these, over one third
will be in intelligent buildings – heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and security – while utilities
will account for 10% and the automotive industry around 8%. The challenge is not so much
how to generate data, but how to capture and collate it in a way that can be exploited to the
benefit of the community. In January 201325, Machina estimated that, by 2022, the Machine to
Macine (M2M) market would amount to over $1 trillion with two thirds accounted for by the
devices and their installation and one third accounted for by the “service wrap” flowing from
this network of connected devices. These services will be enabled by secure, software platforms
from which data analytics and other services will be generated – the data analytics alone being
forecast to reach $16.1 billion by 2017, according to IDC estimates (op cit 2).
3.12 How digitalization will transform urban environments is set out in the Government’s Strategic
Plan for Level 3 Building Information Modelling (BIM). BIM is described as a game-changer for the
construction sector and defined as,
“a collaborative way of working, underpinned by the digital technologies which unlock more
efficient methods of designing, delivering and maintaining physical built assets. BIM embeds key
product and asset data in a 3D computer model that can be used for effective management of
information throughout an asset’s lifecycle – from earliest concept through to operation.”
3.13 It was a key tool in the design, construction, and managed disassembly of the Olympic site, and
instrumental in delivering the project on time and within budget. It is also central to the design
and construction of the £16 billion Crossrail project26, the largest BIM enabled project in Europe,
which is extending to the Borough by 2018.

22
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/409774/14-1230-internet-of-things-review.pdf
23
http://digital-built-britain.com/DigitalBuiltBritainLevel3BuildingInformationModellingStrategicPlan.pdf
24
http://www.telecomengine.com/sites/default/files/temp/CEBIT_M2M_WhitePaper_2012_01_11.pdf
25
http://www.telecomengine.com/sites/default/files/temp/CEBIT_M2M_WhitePaper_2012_01_11.pdf
26
http://www.crossrail.co.uk/benefits/design-innovation/

29
 3.14 The Government has already identified 20% savings in capital expenditure from the use of BIM27
and is projecting 33% savings in whole life costs. Expertise in the deployment of BIM not only
offers substantial opportunities for improving productivity in the UK construction contracting
market – worth over £50 billion per annum – but also significant business opportunities in a
global construction market that is projected to almost double from around $8 trillion pa to $15
trillion pa by 2025. To achieve its goals, the Government is attaching priority to:
- t he creation of a set of new, international “Open Data Standards to enable easy sharing of
data across the entire market and the creation of a cultural environment which is co-operative,
seeks to learn and share;
- t he establishment of a new contractual framework for projects, which have been procured
with BIM, to ensure consistency, avoid confusion and encourage, open, collaborative working;
- t raining the public sector client in the use of BIM techniques such as, data requirements,
operational methods and contractual processes;
- driving domestic and international growth and jobs in technology and construction.

The Greenwich Vision

3.15 As a local authority, Greenwich recognizes and share these priorities. Increasingly, the
infrastructure of towns and cities is perceived to be constructed in layers, with the Information
layer, gathering and interpreting the data being generated by the layers of construction assets and
utilities infrastructure, the transport/logistics layer and citizens themselves. This is illustrated in
Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. The Inter-Connected Layers of a Smart City

Copyright NEC Corporation

27
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/325919/Departmental_Cost_Benchmarks_Cost_Reduction_Trajectories_
and_Cost_Reductions_02_July_2014.pdf

30
 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy
Case Study: Building Information Modelling (BIM) – using digital modelling to plan for Crossrail

Image Sources (L): Crossrail (R): Construction Enquirer

BIM for the New Crossrail Station at proposal will allow many of the complex utilities in
and around the station to be visualised in 3D. This
Armourer’s Court – Woolwich ensures that anyone working in the vicinity of the
• Full BIM-based lifecycle management solution proposed stations knows the exact locations of the
complex web of pipes and cable under the streets
• Constrained site, with added complexities of that need to be avoided or protected, improving
a Heritage site (the Royal Arsenal) and DLR safety and minimising risk of service interruptions.
terminal close by
• Nearly 400 new homes to be built directly
above the new Crossrail station
Key Benefits of BIM for Crossrail:
• 2,500 homes will be built on the 350,000m2 • Reduction of risks
site surrounding the station • Improved safety
• Since 2008, 13 planning applications have been • R
 educed errors from using a trusted “single
received within 1km of the Crossrail station site source of truth” approach to data management
The new Crossrail station aims to assist in the • R
 educed information loss between project
transformation of Woolwich, by reducing journey phases
times and traffic congestion (through better public
transport links), and supporting regeneration. • Improved project delivery
From 2018, up to 12 services an hour will allow
passengers to travel to Canary Wharf, the City and
the West End without having to change trains.
Crossrail aims to be the first major public
infrastructure project to utilise BIM to manage its
full lifecycle, from design through construction to
operations and maintenance. A key focus is creating
and storing accurate data (physical, environmental,
and commercial) for management of the entire
operation.
Through BIM, significant time and cost savings can
be achieved on constrained sites such as Woolwich
by bringing together models of all the components
of the project in a virtual environment, checking
for and therefore avoiding any clashes on site. The

31
3.16 Our vision is that, with our significant construction programme, Greenwich should be at the
forefront of developments in BIM, in effect to become a BIM Borough, where the community
benefits from the power of this transformational technology, embedded in the infrastructure, as
exemplified in para 3.08. We also believe there is the opportunity to build a cluster of expertise
in the development of BIM/the IoT, and in its many applications, which will create high value jobs
for our citizens.

3.17 The Council will therefore:

- work with developers and contractors to ensure that our Masterplans and major
developments and refurbishments are BIM enabled and that appropriate data is open
and shared to the benefit of all, in a secure and safe environment;
- liaise closely with the Digital Built Britain Task Force and the University of Greenwich
to ensure that the Council and Greenwich residents in, or entering, the construction
industry have access to relevant accredited learning programmes;
- explore the creation of a hub of advanced capability in new urban design, BIM
management and data analytics by working closely with the Digital Built Britain Task
Force and the University of Greenwich to ensure that businesses have access to the
necessary research and knowledge, by piloting new applications, and by focusing in
our Smart Cities Strategy on developing a business cluster which will collaborate
with BIS/UKTI to promote UK knowledge and experience in overseas markets.
- collaborate with partners to develop a secure software platform to capture the data
being generated and act as the interface between users and service providers (see
data integration concept model in Figure 2 below).

Figure 2. Data Integration Model

Source: Digital Greenwich

32
 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy

Section 4

An Innovative and
Smart Council

33
 4. An Innovative and Smart Council

This chapter sets out the standards based approach the Council proposes to take to managing the
transformation of services for which it is responsible, the key principles it will adopt and the roadmap it
will develop for that purpose.

Background
4.01 It is clear from the Introduction that to improve the quality and efficiency of services in the
Borough and to create a more dynamic economy, change is not an option, but an imperative.
The Council has already made good progress in improving services, as well as delivering savings,
with new ways of working helping to deliver efficiency savings of £100 million over the last four
years.
4.02 The time is now right to build on these foundations and the lessons learned to date. If the
Council is to improve the quality of its services in a world of constrained budgets, Greenwich,
like other local authorities and cities, now needs to look beyond merely improving the efficiency
of current ways of working. The Council needs to transform the way it works; transform the
way it engages with citizens and other stakeholders; transform the way it partners with other
organisations across the public, private and voluntary sectors in Greenwich and beyond; and
transform the way it anticipates and responds to future challenges.
4.03 However, service transformation requires a structured and comprehensive approach over
time; indeed, it is one which requires careful preparation and planning, and a framework for
change which is based on sound principles and measureable in its outcomes. A framework has
been recently developed by the British Standards Institution, in the form of PAS 18128, which
was developed under the guidance of a range of experts from a range of relevant stakeholder
groups, a process in which Greenwich officials played a leading role.
4.04 The Council intends to use the British Standards Institution’s PAS 181, and other relevant
standards, as the framework for developing a “smarter” Greenwich and this chapter summarises
the main elements of the approach it shall be adopting.
4.05 Chapter 2 of the Core Strategy, published in 2013, sets out the Council’s vision for Greenwich
in 2028 and the objectives it has set itself. These essentially define a vibrant and diverse local
community, which is sustainable and resilient in social, economic and environmental terms; where
current inequalities in health and income have been reduced; and where mobility, within and
beyond the Borough, has been improved in the face of a one third increase in population and
significant growth within the sub region.
4.06 This document, Greenwich’s Smart City Strategy, describes how the Borough will use smarter
ways of working to ensure that:
-G
 reenwich has a digital infrastructure which compares in performance and price with other
similar locations;
-T
 he Council makes best use of data and the technology available in the delivery of its services;
-A
 ll citizens have ready access to the information and services they need, to run their daily lives,
in the format that offers the most cost effective form of delivery;
- The Council engages with its citizens more effectively, adopting best practice in the use of digital
and social media.
28
 AS 181, “Smart City Framework – Guide to establishing strategies for smart cities and communities”, published by BSI, 2014. http://shop.bsigroup.com/
P
upload/267775/PAS181(2014).pdf

34
 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy
Case Study: Santander – harnessing smart city thinking to improve the city

Santander Smart City

Located on the north coast of Spain, Santander
(pop. 174,000) is typical of many cities across
Europe facing numerous challenges: congested
transport infrastructure, pollution and air quality
issues, increases in demand for energy, improving
the management of services and the need to curb
climate change.
In 2010 Santander was selected by the European
Commission (EC) as a test-bed for smart city
experimentation. The project team installed over
20,000 sensors around the city and the surrounding
region – an area of around 5,300 square kilometres
– to facilitate a range of new services, from air
quality measurement, remote dimming of street
lamps on empty streets to optimised watering of
the city’s parks.
The sensors run on a network with wireless
and fibre optic connections, owned and run by
the municipality. Repeaters pick up signals they
send and pass them to gateways where city-wide Air quality: The city cross-references traffic,
data is collated and sent to be analysed by the carbon monoxide and temperature levels,
municipality or used by app developers to create combined with the wind direction and speed,
new services. and automatically issues alerts when air quality
NEC has provided the “Cloud Operations Control thresholds are exceeded via the website, app and
Centre (COCC)” for the Santander demonstration local media. This is a huge benefit to the elderly
centre located in Pronillo, which features an and citizens with respiratory conditions who can
advanced dashboard that enables city managers opt to remain indoors.
to quickly cross-reference and visualize any Waste management: Santander is expecting to
combination of city data sets as easy-to-understand reduce CO2 emissions and significant costs with its
graphs, maps and comparative statistics via multi- just-in-time bin collections.
touch displays.
Light/temperature: Information on ambient light
Interoperable standards make it possible to collect levels and traffic and footfall levels means the street
data from a diversity of sensors, in a consistent and lights can be automatically dimmed when not
secure way, resulting in an open, accessible and required.
future-proofed multi-vendor M2M platform. These
structured and unstructured M2M and social media Noise pollution, potholes and anti-social
data are then analysed using advanced algorithms. behaviour: The local university has created a map
identifying areas with the greatest levels of noise
pollution, while citizens can use a city app and
Results their smartphone camera to report potholes, fly
tipping or graffiti. New incidents are now typically
Traffic management: Santander expects to cut solved in four to six days, compared to two or
traffic emissions by up to 30% by reducing the three weeks in the past.
time people spend looking for parking spaces with
real-time space availability data – available on the
city app and via digital displays around the city.

35
Key Principles
4.07. The approach to change will be driven by a number of key principles:
- “One Greenwich”: transformational change cannot be delivered by the Borough working in
isolation. The Council will work in partnership with all public sector, voluntary and community
organisations active in Greenwich – such as the NHS, the Metropolitan Police Service,
Transport for London, Job Centre Plus, registered social landlords, and colleges and universities
– to develop an integrated approach to service transformation, in which all partners share
and reuse their data and assets to deliver the best results for Greenwich citizens in the most
efficient ways possible.
- Universality and inclusivity: public services, by definition, should be accessible to all. The
Council plans a step change in the delivery and use of digital services and digital means of citizen
engagement, which will be complemented by improving digital skills, awareness and access
across the community to ensure that no one is left behind.
- Citizen-centricity: the needs and aspirations of citizens will drive all aspects of our approach to
service transformation. This means working towards a one-stop service for citizen and business
interactions with the Borough, which is available anytime, anywhere, over the channel of the
citizen’s choice, and built around their needs not the internal structures of our organisations.
The aim will be for the great majority of Greenwich citizens, the great majority of the time, to
choose to use digital channels on a self-service basis.
- A consultative and collaborative approach: the Council sees service delivery as a collaborative
process in which citizens are active co-creators of public services. It will empower people to
create their own solutions both to their own needs and to the needs of others in Greenwich. It
will also use new, digitally-enhanced forms of civic engagement to ensure direct, meaningful and
real-time participation of citizens in the planning, policy, budgeting and management decisions
of the Council. The Council is already partnering with organisations at the forefront of new
approaches to citizen engagement and obtaining views from citizens in real time. The Council
will look to extend these approaches to all areas of its activity.
- Evidence-based and outcome driven: the Council will set and report on clear performance
indicators for the outcomes it is committed to achieve. As more information becomes available
- from technology embedded in Greenwich’s infrastructure, and worn or carried by individuals,
as well as Council initiatives – there is the opportunity to develop a real-time, event-level
understanding of what is happening in the Borough. We will also explore the use of data
gathering and analytics to exploit that opportunity, in order to improve and personalise public
services in real time, to strip out waste by matching supply more precisely to demand, and by
enhancing our ability to predict, anticipate and head-off problems before they emerge. The
Council will encourage the community to make good use of this data, while ensuring at all times
that the privacy of people’s personal data is secure.
- Greenwich Council as an outward looking, “learning organization” with the flexibility to
develop new approaches: the Council is committed to learning from others’ experience and,
indeed, from its own, in order to improve performance; it also needs to promote a culture
of challenge and experimentation to develop new approaches, and also develop new skill sets
to be able to adopt new technology and explore any organisational implications. In developing

36
 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy
Case Study: Stickyworld – online engagement to involve residents and businesses in local decision making

Stickyworld
Advances in digital technology provide new
opportunities to involve residents and businesses in
local decision making. Indeed, the world of citizen
or customer engagement is changing fast. At
the forefront of this development is Stickyworld,
formed in 2010 by Michael Kohn, and located in
Greenwich, thanks to the Borough’s commitment
to its digital cluster, access to postgraduate skills
from the University of Greenwich, and good
connections to London and beyond.
Stickyworld facilitates online engagement in
a way that is ideal for physical developments
within an a district, which makes it perfect for
presenting urban design and architects’ proposals.
Instead of the traditional one to one engagement
it enables communities to create a dialogue
among themselves, and with the developer or
local authority, resulting in a richer and more
meaningful response.
The Royal Borough of Greenwich chose
Stickyworld’s approach to obtain feedback
from citizens on a TfL funded major public
realm improvement scheme at Eltham High
Street. The lead consultant, East Architects, used
the Stickyworld platform to create their own
interactive websites to serve different stages of the
project - introducing initial concepts and plans,
allowing citizens and businesses to make notes
on the area maps or pictures, or reply to others’
comments. These were analysed, revised plans
drawn up, and the process repeated: visitors to the
site could zoom in, to inspect the detail of the
plans, and comment on line or in writing.
As Will Greasley, East Architects, said, “A significant
benefit of the platform is the way it facilitates
conversations, allowing questions and comments
to be made in direct relation to online content.
This is highly beneficial as it reduces the chance
of miscommunication, and encourages focused
engagement.”

37
 national policy for smart cities, the Department for Business commissioned Arup29 to review
developments in six global cities recognized as thought leaders. One element they had in
common was the establishment of a small specialist team to support service transformation, to
provide an independent view about the potential for new approaches and the ability to forge
partnerships with others; they also had a small budget to pilot and facilitate change. Given the
importance of the concept, the team reported directly to the Mayor or CEO.

Developing a Roadmap for Change

4.08 Putting the above principles fully into practice in Greenwich cannot be done at once. This is a
transformational journey which the Council and its stakeholders need to go on together over a
period of years. The Council will work closely with stakeholders to develop the roadmap it will
use to manage that journey. It will do so using the best practice framework recommended in the
PAS 181 standard, which:
- Takes a phased and incremental approach
- Balances the need for Borough-wide change management, on the one hand, with the need to
foster locally-driven, community-level innovation on the other
- Takes a ‘viral’ approach to implementation: that is, establishing the business processes, capacity,
and structures that can drive transformation and create sustained improvements over time,
even if all steps of the transformational journey cannot be planned in detail at the outset.

4.09 Our aim will be to publish this Service Transformation Roadmap in the first half of 2016. Key
elements the Roadmap should address include:
1. Confirming the view of what a ‘smart future’ for Greenwich will look and feel like.
2. 
Committing further to smart data, i.e. ensuring that appropriate data on the
performance and use of Greenwich’s physical, spatial and digital assets is available in real
time and on an open and interoperable basis, in order to enable real-time integration and
optimization of city resources.
3. 
Building a partnership across data suppliers and users in Greenwich (including the
Council, its suppliers, the utilities, and other major service providers and asset owners
in the Borough from across the public, private and third sectors) that is committed to
progressive opening up of Borough data against agreed standards of interoperability and
privacy protection.
4.  mpowering the Greenwich community to drive service transformation. The Council
E
will make available information to small businesses, social entrepreneurs and individual
citizens, enabling them to design and deliver public services themselves, to use creatively
anonymized public data with other data and to create new sorts of value (both ‘public
value’ and commercial value).
5.  elivering one-stop, citizen-centric services. The Council and its partners will apply
D
smart data and more citizen-centric ways of working to engage citizens, businesses and
communities directly in the creation of services, ensuring that these are built around user
needs not the Borough’s organizational structures. The Council will work towards providing
citizens and businesses with public services accessible in one stop, over multiple channels.

29
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/249397/bis-13-1216-global-innovators-international-smart-cities.pdf

38
 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy

6.  igital services for all. The Council wants the great majority of Council services to
D
be accessible over digital channels - not because service users are forced to do so, but
because they choose to do so in order to receive better services. This means not only
radically improving the quality of digital services, but also ensuring that none of our citizens
are left behind. Moving to universal digital delivery offers the potential for very significant
operational savings in the Council and, for many residents and users, a better way of
engaging with the Council. The Service Transformation Roadmap will set out the plan for
doing so, through targeted investments and cross-sectoral partnerships aimed at tackling
the access, skills and trust barriers which still deter some Greenwich residents from
engaging fully with digital technology.
7.  stablishing governance and stakeholder engagement processes to support and
E
evaluate these changes, including through:
- Establishing an Innovation Fund to pilot new approaches: to help manage the risk of new
innovative approaches, the Council will establish a fund to pilot new ideas against its own
strategic priorities and obtain feedback from users. This will make it less reliant on external
sources to develop ideas in areas of importance.
- Developing a secure Borough-wide IT architecture, as part of the strategy to develop ultra
fast broadband across the Borough and a platform approach to service delivery.
- Establishing a digital/smart borough transformation team, reporting directly to the CEO.
Digital Greenwich will be responsible for:
• Leading the Council’s engagement with stakeholders to develop our Service Transformation
Roadmap
• Managing the Innovation Fund and identifying good practice and where technology and data
can best be used to solve problems
• Developing a detailed framework to measure and to report publically on a) the Borough’s
performance in delivering our Service Transformation Roadmap, and b) the benefits that this
delivers, mapped against key performance indicators.

4.10 In the light of the above, the Council will:

• develop a roadmap for change [by Q2 2016] which:
- Creates a shared vision of what a ‘smart future’ for Greenwich will look and feel like
- Invests further in smart data
- Builds an open data partnership across all elements of Greenwich’s services
- Empowers the Greenwich community to use that data to drive service transformation
- Delivers one-stop, citizen-centric services
- Ensures that no Greenwich citizen is left behind, with all able to benefit from digital services
- Establishes governance and stakeholder engagement processes to support and evaluate
these changes, including through: establishing an Innovation Fund to pilot new approaches;
developing a secure Borough-wide IT architecture; and establishing Digital Greenwich as the
digital/smart borough transformation team, reporting directly to the CEO
• seek to engage with other cities, with a strong commitment to smart city principles, to
share experience and learn from the best.

39
 Case Study: Ordnance Survey – using location framework to make sense of data to support smart cities

Ordnance Survey – supporting Digital Greenwich

The digital revolution making sense of growing volumes of data within
is enabling cities to IT systems. Ordnance Survey’s role in providing
work in smarter, ways an underpinning location framework is evolving
to address mounting rapidly to support smart cities.
twenty-first century challenges. More than ever,
location is being used as a way of unifying and

Built environment: We will develop our

Transport: We will integrate multiple data detailed mapping data to serve the needs
types to support end-to-end multimodal for smarter infrastructure and property
journeys and mobility-as-a-service. management, particularly Building
This will mean, for example, integrating Information Models (BIMs).
public transport routes, supporting This will involve bringing together a
vehicle sharing apps and providing the range of OS and other data to support city
data infrastructure to enable autonomous models with 3D intelligence and indoor
vehicle navigation. and underground applications.

Internet of Things (IoT): The OS data Predictive analytics Demand is growing

framework is invaluable for providing for hyper-local information in big data
location context and cross-referencing to systems to predict environmental, social
enable IoT devices to efficiently connect and economic factors.
to other data and services. We are aggregating third party information
We will develop this role for the IoT by with OS data and creating interfaces that
providing support for machine-to-machine will directly support analytics-as-a-service.
data services built on location-awareness
and persistent identifiers.

40
 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy

Section 5

Creating a
Dynamic Economy and
High Value Employment.

41
 5. Creating a Dynamic Economy and High Value Employment

This chapter focuses on the Greenwich economy and its resilience to further economic and technological
change, and it sets out the steps the Council will take to improve economic growth, productivity and the
quality of jobs within the Borough.

5.01. Recent reports prepared by GLA Economics30 confirm that London is steadily recovering from
the financial crisis of 2008/9. Indeed, it has recovered more quickly than the rest of the UK
economy with the result that the London economy now accounts for 22% of UK output and, in
some key knowledge based sectors, even more, particularly financial services and insurance (50%
of UK output), information and communication services (36%) and professional, scientific and
technical services (34%).
5.02. However, as the chart below shows (taken from Figure 6, Current Issues Note 43, March
2015, GLA Economics31) the growth in the London economy has not been evenly spread, with
significant growth in the Inner East and West Districts and much slower growth in Outer
London. Output per head in Outer London (East and North East), in which Greenwich is
situated, was £14,731 in 2013 compared to Inner London East’s £38,921 and the UK average
of £23,755. Moreover, it has grown only 11% in real terms (i.e. accounting for changes in the
Consumer Price Index) over the sixteen year period 1997-2013, while productivity in Inner
London East, which includes Canary Wharf, has increased by almost 70% over the same period,
and the UK average by 25%.

5.03. In analyzing the Greenwich economy, the starting point is the structure and composition of
Greenwich business, drawing on Table 1 from the Introduction, which shows the relative
importance of the different business sectors within the Borough and the average output per
head of each. Some 40% of employment in the Borough lies in the public sector, including
education, health and social care and public administration, and 90% of all jobs are in
30
https://londondatastore-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/dataset/london-economy-today/LETMar_15.pdf
31
http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/GVA%28I%29%20%26%20GVA%28P%29%20estimates%20for%20London%20current%20issues%20note%20
update%2043.pdf

42
 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy

service sectors, with a strong presence in retail/wholesale activities, transportation/storage,

accommodation and food services, administration and support services, information and
communication services, and professional, scientific and technical services. There are three key
areas of concern:
(i) T
 he productivity of employment, and hence the wages, in these sectors of importance to
Greenwich is often considerably lower than the London average, and even below the UK
average.
(ii) Up until now, low value service sectors have provided important employment opportunities
for the relatively low skilled in Greenwich and other urban areas32. However, the technology
change that is sweeping through many service sectors raises the question of how resilient the
Greenwich economy – indeed, the wider service economy - is to computerization. Research
by Frey and Osborne33 suggests that almost one third of jobs in London are vulnerable to
computerisation over the next 10-20 years and it is lower paid jobs, with simple replicable
tasks, which are most at risk. 63% of these lower skilled jobs are in the high risk category
compared with 30% overall, with service, sales, and administration and support posts being
the most vulnerable. It cannot be assumed that Greenwich will be able to rely on these jobs in
future. Table 4. below, setting out the skill levels of the Greenwich workforce, suggests there
is no room for complacency: many jobs fall into the “at risk” category and, with continued
downward pressure on public expenditure, public sector employment can no longer be
considered as “safe” as it once was. Furthermore, notwithstanding the improvement in
employment prospects over the past year, Table 3 in the Introduction, providing an analysis of
the occupations of those receiving Job Seekers Allowance for more than one year, points to
the difficulty of those in low skilled service jobs finding employment

Table 4. Skills Profile of Greenwich Residents

32
http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/cities-growth-poverty-full.pdf
33
http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/uk-futures/london-futures-agiletown.pdf

43
(iii) T
 he size composition of businesses in Greenwich has shifted from being dominated by large
manufacturing or utility businesses to a micro-business economy where, in 2012 85% of
the firms and 50% of output was generated by firms with less than 10 employees. While a
microbusiness economy is not necessarily more vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the business
cycle or technology change as one containing large firms, microbusinesses, particularly in
the early years, have a much higher failure rate and face a tougher challenge of developing
their markets and raising the finance to do so. However, it is those that succeed which are
generating the employment and growth in the UK economy.

5.04. As the Frey and Osborne study also indicated, knowledge intensive services, such as
management, technology/computing, creative activities, education, and jobs with a high degree
of personal customer care are most resilient to computerization. Indeed, a study of LinkedIn
profiles over the past five years, shows a significant increase in occupations with high levels of
digital skills, such as in software development, social media, data science, user interfaces, digital
marketing and cloud services.

The Greenwich Vision and Strategy

5.05. Our approach to secure sustainable long term employment for our citizens is, therefore, to
promote those areas most resilient to computerisation and to support the improvement in the
productivity and quality of jobs in the Borough, and access to these jobs beyond the Borough
boundary, in particular by developing a cluster of high value digital businesses at the forefront of
urban innovation, in the creative and design industries and in modern manufacturing, such as 3D
printing. We shall also seek to strengthen the resilience of established Greenwich businesses by
making them more aware of how to exploit digital technologies.
5.06. Our Strategy is based on a number of important elements:
(i) Developing a high specification digital infrastructure: this was covered in an earlier chapter
and is clearly central to our ability to create a world class digital cluster, with its ever increasing
demand for speed and bandwidth, and increasingly, businesses from all sectors and those
wishing to work from home.
(ii) P
 rioritising our efforts around the key elements of the digital economy, where the
opportunity for innovation by SMEs is greatest. In the modern digital economy, the new
raw material is data, the new capital equipment for capturing and transforming it into valuable
services is ICT and the new high level skills are how to model, validate, analyse, manage and
apply it. Service solutions delivered in one sector can be rapidly transferred to another –
very often delivered off the same cloud based platform - and SME resilience and growth is
similarly linked to that ability to develop a diverse range of customers. Partly because of their
importance to the urban innovation agenda, partly as a result of digital businesses already
emerging within the Greenwich cluster, and partly with a view to future development, the
following broad themes are areas where business clusters are likely to emerge:
a) internet security;
b) data analytics & visualization;
c) robotics & autonomous systems;
d) additive manufacturing, rapid prototyping & digital design;
e) service design & citizen/customer engagement;
f) a pplications which exploit the Internet of Things and integration of data;

44
 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy
Case Study: Crowdvision – technology to analyse and plan live crowd movement

Creating a business: In 2009 Dr Anders

Johansson was becoming well known on the
world’s academic stage as a leader in the analysis of
crowd behaviours and dynamics. Fiona Strens was
running a consultancy business focused on scouting
out technology with disruptive potential in the
security and safety sector. The two came together
when Anders won the London Business School
sponsored Global Security Challenge and, on a © 2015 Crowd Vision Ltd. A snapshot of our demo dashboard
demonstrating the CrowdVision capabilities within an airport.
handshake, it was agreed to create a joint venture
called CrowdVision to develop and commercialise
live crowd analytics technology using video
analytics techniques.
Where it all started: The first customers
were in Mecca, where the company’s software
product provides the safety authorities with
early warning of danger and enables preventative
crowd management. The safety record around the
Jamarat plaza in Mecca has improved dramatically
since the system was installed. Unfortunately, the
CrowdVision deployments do not extend as far
as the location of the tragic Mina crowd crushing
accident in September 2015, so our work needs to
continue.
Branching out: Between 2009 and 2014 the © 2015 Crowd Vision Ltd. A fisheye lens view of part of an airport
company gradually grew, taking on new staff and with CrowdVision analytics detecting the presence of passengers
winning new customers – ranging from Police March 2015 the company brought on board a
Forces for crowd safety in the 2012 Olympics to large new investor providing the funds, skills and
exclusive car show and music festival organisers relationships to drive growth in the airport sector
looking to optimise their events. The founders and beyond.
pitched ‘dragons den style’ to several UK Angel
Investor networks and secured enough funding A place we call home: Since the summer of
over several years to sustain the business and create 2012 the business has chosen the Greenwich
exciting new products. Digital Enterprise hub at Mitre Passage as its
base. The value-for-money rates, good quality
Taking off: Since 2013 the focus has been on accommodation, community of like-minded
airports. A ‘Smart Airport’ solution was trialled innovators, and connected location make it perfect
close to home at London City Airport and then for a rapidly growing technology company. As
adopted large scale across the whole airport. It we hire for growth we look for excellent people
measures passenger numbers and activity and is with a passion to build our business. Our reach is
used by operations staff, planners and executives now international – we’ve just opened our New
to measure performance and inform real-time York office - and we benefit from the richness in
and planning decisions. The technology is now backgrounds, culture, skills and languages that our
deployed in many airports, including some of the highly diverse team brings. Several of those people
busiest and most prestigious international airports were educated and live in the Greenwich borough,
in Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. In strengthening our links with the local community.

45
 Importantly, these themes are central to the emerging “smart city”, service transformation
agenda – whether it is intelligent transport/mobility systems, health and adult social care,
resource and energy efficiency, reduced emissions, or city/social interaction. They will help to
transform old, and create new, value chains in areas such as autonomous vehicles/autonomous
logistics and construction. But these themes and these skills also underpin wider developments in
the digital economy and, hence, offer the prospect of even stronger growth. However, business
growth in new emerging markets presents a variety of challenges and we need to ensure our
digital entrepreneurs have access to space, have the right leadership and management skills to
build their businesses, and have access to finance to enable that growth.
(iii) Improving the resilience of established businesses to digitalization. The Greenwich
E-business programme has been an important and valuable tool in raising awareness of the
way digital technologies can improve business processes, reduce costs, raise profile/customer
awareness and satisfaction, all of which improve business competitiveness and performance.
We will strengthen the awareness of Greenwich businesses to the value and importance of
this programme and seek additional funding to develop complementary activity;
(iv) Capitalising on our Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The Borough is fortunate to
have three excellent HEIs within its boundary, providing highly qualified young talent and
developing intellectual property through their research programmes. There are a wide range
of programmes for transferring knowledge between HEIs and business, and for supporting
business capability, and we need to ensure that Greenwich SMEs are aware of these
opportunities and to identify new areas for collaboration between universities and business –
including universities from across London.
- The University of Greenwich has a number of research centres, based on the University’s
strong traditions in architecture, computing and engineering, which offer significant capability in
the area of urban innovation and, more broadly, related to the digital economy. The University
has a strong interest in supporting faculty and students to commercialise their knowledge and
already has a number of spin-outs, including several operating in the Council’s Digital Innovation
Centre at North Greenwich cluster.
- Ravensbourne, with its world class capability in digital design, 3D printing and rapid prototyping,
is seeking to develop further its research capability and has formed its own cluster of micro-
businesses.
- The Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance is at the forefront of innovation and
creativity in the performing arts, an area of growing importance in the world of digital
marketing and digital publication.
(v) Training our young people to seize the opportunities of the digital age. An analysis of
apprenticeships being undertaken over the period 2005-2015 (see Table 5. below) highlights
the low numbers embarking upon apprenticeships in ICT and the relatively high numbers
in retail and business administration. This may be because the vast preponderance of ICT
businesses in the Borough are micro-businesses, employing less than 10 people, who find it
difficult to engage with the Apprenticeship system – a difficulty identified in the recent report
by The Centre for London: “This is for Everyone: Connecting Young people and the Tech
City Cluster”34. The Council will seek to improve the links between our digital firms and the

34
http://centreforlondon.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/CFL_THIS_IS_FOR_EVERYONE_REPORT.pdf

46
 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy
Case Study: Transforming Systems – a health resilience dashboard

Real time whole system emergency

care intelligence in your pocket
Transforming Systems is born: Transforming
Systems was established in 2009 as a result of the
delivery challenges observed in preparation for, and
in response to, the H1N1 Swine flu pandemic. In
a Joint venture with the University of Greenwich
School of Computing & Mathematical Sciences
and the NHS Medway Primary Care Trust,
who provided seedcorn funding Transforming
Systems took the emerging lessons and developed
“SHREWD” - the single health resilience early incidents such as a terrorist attack or major road
warning database. accident.
What is Shrewd? Shrewd addresses a number Business Growth: Since 2009 Transforming
of common challenges, such as: lack of agreed Systems has grown into a smart and flexible
indicators that are shared across a health company, that can expand or contract its capacity
economy; siloed planning and response to system through its developer and consultant network.
resilience and critical data not being shared; poor It currently employs 10 staff with an Australian
communication systems across organisations, Office for overnight development and a just in
information rarely delivered in a timely fashion, time development facility in India. It is funded by
reporting process was flawed, slow speed of 9 contracts with Clinical Commissioning groups
operational response due to poor data; lack of an and has a further 4 new contracts and 13 areas in
audit trail; and limited strategic system oversight for contract negotiation or early stage development.
those needing to make an operational or strategic It makes active use of its links with the University
response. Shrewd is part of a process that helps to of Greenwich and has a range of new products
engage health economy partners in more effective already in development and testing all of which
sharing of mission critical information and helps have been funded; these include a predictive
coordinate an efficient and effective response to analytics system, a real time beds system and a live
system escalation. It collects data, agreed with primary care dashboard. As a result it is expected to
health economy partners, and presents it in an double in size over the next 12 months
accessible way, in real time in response to growing Example of Successful Deployment: Shrewd has
system pressure now been successfully deployed by CCGs in Kent,
Key Features: Shrewd facilitates a whole health Southampton, Hampshire and is rolling out to
economy agreement on what are the mission Surrey and Sussex CCGs this year. A longitudinal
critical indicators for each organisation and helps impact and cost benefit analysis study are being
identify system escalation triggers. It identifies planned. Thus the main impact to date has been
where in the urgent or emergency care process the development of an agreed comprehensive
pressure is, or is building, and within 3 clicks can whole health system data set, which is operational
identify the granular detail of what is contributing and built in to agreed action and recovery plans
to that pressure. Most importantly, it builds in a – giving users the capability and confidence to
live escalation response with a teleconferencing handle any crisis.
system, actions allocated to individuals with system
alerts if an action is due and when it is overdue.
The system can be personalised: in one click, any
indicator on the personal dashboard can be set to
push an alert to any mobile phone or device. It
provides a powerful response to unplanned major

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 world of education to raise awareness of the employment opportunities afforded by the
digital economy, encourage more young people to pursue ICT Apprenticeships and, crucially,
to simplify the process for SMEs and microbusinesses.

Table 5. Apprenticeships in Greenwich 2005-2014

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 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy

(vi) The Council to create its own Innovation Budget and establish Digital Greenwich to play
an active role in bidding for projects: The importance of the Council piloting new ideas,
to tackle some of the acute challenges it faces, and to set aside a small Innovation Fund
for that purpose, was discussed in the previous chapter. Such a fund not only indicates the
seriousness of intent regarding developing innovative solutions to urban challenges, but
will also enable the Council to develop its own priorities for action, while enabling it to
leverage in external funds and partners as the opportunity arises. Our aim is to develop
our own capability in urban innovation and design linked to smart city capabilities (including
Building Information Modelling) and, instead of being a passive partner and location for
experimentation, Digital Greenwich will take an active role in commissioning pilots on behalf
of the Council, identifying potential partners, managing projects and being accountable for
the outcomes. It will thus help to de-risk innovation for the Council and become a focal point
for the Borough’s digital ecosystem.
(vii) Disseminating and Raising Awareness – developing an Urban Solutions Platform: An
important part of the shift to a digital economy has been the shift to developing cloud
or platform based approaches to matching service offers with demand and providing
secure collaboration space for partners to develop their projects. The Council believes
these concepts apply with equal force to the broad area of urban innovation. To this
end, Greenwich is working with partners to develop the concept of a cloud-based data
integration and Urban Solutions Platform. This will provide a data management, data
analytics and visualization capability to enable the effective use of operational data, and open
up new innovative opportunities, based on new insights obtained from the data. We believe
this will be an important attractor for innovative SMEs.
 reating Export Opportunities: As the BIS report35 on the global opportunities for smart
(viii) C
city solutions indicated, this is a rapidly growing market that is projected to increase to
over $400 billion by 2020. The report also considered that UK expertise should result in
UK firms securing some 10% of that market. Moreover, research by UKTI indicates that
firms that export are typically more productive than counterparts who only sell in the
domestic market. Thus, a more export oriented Greenwich cluster will be a more dynamic
and prosperous cluster. Having proven their capability, we therefore need to ensure that
Greenwich businesses are aware of, and well placed to seize, this huge opportunity. There
are two important avenues:
i. H
 orizon 2020 is providing a focus on this topic which is opening up opportunities for UK
businesses to collaborate with European partners to provide the solutions to urban challenges;
ii. The Mayor of London’s Export Programme36, working in collaboration with UKTI, provides
support to London SMEs to export and one of the areas identified for activity is urban
innovation.
5.07. The Strategy outlined above aims at nothing less than a significant transformation of the
Greenwich economy to capitalise on the digital revolution and specifically the application of digital
technologies within the urban environment and field of smart city innovation. It requires not only
a considerable degree of policy alignment and co-ordination between the Council, other agencies
and its business community, but also the flexibility to take a leadership role in European and
Innovate UK projects.

35
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/249423/bis-13-1217-smart-city-market-opportunties-uk.pdf
36
https://www.london.gov.uk/priorities/business-economy/for-business/trade-missions

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5.08. To achieve this, the Council will:
• Lead the development of the Greenwich Digital Cluster and work with Visitor
Greenwich to bring about a “smart” visitor economy.
• Further promote the growth of digital businesses by building on its current
activities including the Innovation and Skills Centres in the Borough to provide
space, knowledge transfer and skills/business support programmes to Greenwich
entrepreneurs.
•U  se the Innovation Fund to enable Digital Greenwich to commission pilot projects
in support of the Council’s objectives for service transformation and business growth
and encourage innovative SMEs to come forward with solutions.
• Work with partners to develop the concept of a cloud based data integration and
Urban Innovation/Solutions Platform and attract innovative businesses to develop
new digital apps with the data.
• Play an active role in helping Greenwich businesses internationalise through EU
programmes and London’s own Export Programme.
• Create stronger links between businesses and schools working through the
Greenwich Education Business Partnership and training providers to promote
stronger links with Greenwich digital firms and encourage the greater uptake of ICT
Apprenticeships, and promote work experience opportunities in the sector, including
for those in local colleges and universities, to establish a pool of talent.
• Maintain our current commitment to the E-business programme to help established
firms to become more digitally aware and to capitalise on digital technologies. We
shall look for other funding opportunities to develop complementary programmes
• Work with University of Greenwich and Ravensbourne to create opportunities
for graduates and local residents to develop new business start-ups and support
incubation programmes.

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 Greenwich
Smart City Strategy

Section 6

The Way Forward

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6. The Way Forward
6.01 It is clear from the foregoing that, over the next decade or so, Greenwich will experience a period
of extraordinary change, which will present a significant challenge to the Council and to Greenwich
citizens. The Council could carry on as it is and wait for events to unfold, and then respond to
challenges and opportunities as they arise, or alternatively, seek to change the way it operates, to
try to anticipate those challenges, and build in resilience to unforeseen events. The Council believes
the latter to afford a far better approach, one that enables a more efficient use of resources, with
better outcomes. This report sets out our Vision and how it proposes to proceed.
6.02 The Council’s ambition is to place Greenwich, once again, at the forefront of innovation,
particularly urban innovation. To achieve this goal the Council will use all the assets at its disposal,
including Greenwich’s prized location in London - Europe’s financial capital and the 8th largest
economy in Europe - the space that is available, the knowledge and enterprise of the people of
Greenwich, and access to research excellence. The aim is to build on these assets with world
class digital connectivity as well as the rapid transport links, which Crossrail, City Airport and
Eurostar afford. It is also to become a model of good practice in public service delivery but
this cannot be achieved alone: the knowledge and understanding within the Council has to be
combined with that of partners and residents, to transform the built environment, the services
developed in collaboration with citizens, and to enable the growth of new innovative firms to
provide high quality employment. It is, self evidently, a multi-faceted approach which requires
leadership, drive and co-ordination. As noted earlier, that leadership begins at the highest levels
within the Council, cascading down to empowered officials, and the drive and co-ordination will
be delivered by Digital Greenwich, a team focused on developing a smarter Greenwich, which
will report to the CEO.
6.03 The role of Digital Greenwich will be to:
- provide the Council with a holistic and integrated vision of urban development, one that
successfully anticipates future challenges and balances the economic, social, environmental and
spatial agendas to deliver a sustainable, resilient and responsive Borough.
- support the CEO in the process of service transformation and innovation by working with
policy teams, within the framework of the British Standards Institution’s PAS 181, to develop
priorities and a roadmap and to help manage that change, including managing the risk of
innovation by piloting new approaches and developing the business case for scale up.
- act as a point of contact between the Council and Government agencies and other
organisations, responsible for research, innovation and good practice, such as Innovate UK, the
Catapults, NESTA, the Open Data Institute, and BSI, thereby ensuring that the policies of the
Council are informed by the latest developments and others’ experience.
- provide the Council with a global vision in relation to urban innovation and economic
development, by maintaining global contacts - particularly in Europe and with the EU
Commission - and working in close collaboration with UKTI to ensure that Greenwich
businesses are able to exploit their innovations.
- promote the concept of Open Data within the Council and to work with colleagues to
encourage the more strategic use of data in policy development.
- ensure that the process of service transformation is transparent, both on the Digital Greenwich
web site and in preparing an annual report on progress.
- promote citizen engagement and ensure that service transformation is citizen centric and
rooted in neighbourhoods and communities.

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