Harlow & Gilston Garden Town has been awarded £295,000 by the Dept for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities as part of their Proptech Innovation Fund and the Local Digital Fund
It’s not the first time that HGGT’s ambition has been recognised through Government funding with last year’s Your Quality of Life project, which saw significant engagement with local residents comment on what they liked, disliked and valued about the local area.
This funding will be used by the HGGT Team and partners to explore ways to store, share, manage and display consultation data from across the Garden Town area between local authorities and with the communities they serve.
It will also help the Garden Town partnership understand what digital and data tools and skills are needed to ensure that HGGT can shape future proposals, policies and strategies.
Not only will this allow greater transparency and access to data for the public but generate more meaningful engagement across HGGT Partners and with communities themselves.
Another Garden Town aim is to clearly show the data and analytics from HGGT and council partner consultations so that the community can see what was said and how local authorities plan to use that feedback.
It will promote accountability, growing trust and access with HGGT looking to do this through the creation of an online data resource and dashboard.
This will also help HGGT and partners to not only plan and build the best places possible but build on the Your Quality of Life engagement project and other digital transformation projects across the partnership.
Commenting on behalf of Harlow & Gilston Garden, Naisha Polaine, said: “We have gathered and analysed data from residents on an unprecedented scale across Harlow and the local area over the last six months.
“Too often people say what’s the point of giving a view, nothing happens, but we want to show the community it does make a difference to what we do.
“Our first step is to make sure we have the right digital and data systems, skills and tools in place to do this and our Local Digital Fund award helps us to discover that and put it into action.
“We will then be looking at creating an accessible dashboard for the public and our Garden Town Partners through the PropTech Innovation fund.
“As a five council partnership, we’re committed to creating thriving and sustainable communities for this and future generations.”
