There’s a new term feeling in the DG Cities studio this week. We’re looking ahead to a particularly busy couple of months, with some exciting projects and events. And with the first Autumn Budget for Burnham’s new government looming in October, it feels like a significant moment for wider change across the board, from news on net zero policy, infrastructure and housing to the shift from a decade of hypothetical to real when it comes to autonomous vehicles on London’s streets. We’ll be on the road ourselves this month – catch the team on stage, in roundtables, online, on trains, on boats, bikes, the DLR...

This week: Connected Britain

Digital infrastructure has become a major public conversation this year, against a backdrop of data centres, AI and the rollout of self-driving (with a safety driver) taxis in London. Beyond the hype, we’re looking at what all this means for communities and demonstrating where AI can be most useful for local authorities. For example, our asset management tool, which uses AI to help council teams manage their housing improvements and decarbonisation goals.

We’ll be taking some of these ideas to Connected Britain at ExCel. On 9th September, Balazs Csuvar will be hosting an ‘AI Trailblazers’ session at 14.20 on the Local Authority Stage. He’ll look at practical, not always glamorous, but genuinely useful applications of AI for local authorities.

On the vital Connected Britain theme of digital exclusion, we’ll be sharing some of our latest insights. Most now recognise that this is more than a tech, education or device issue, but a systemic design problem that needs innovative new solutions. At 14.50 on the Local Authority Stage, Ed Houghton will be joining a cross-sector panel with Virgin Media O2, Coventry City Council and Cardiff Metropolitan University exploring systems approaches to scaling digital inclusion pilots and supporting device reuse.

Sprinting over to the Regional Development Stage for 15.45, Ed is going to be chairing and convening an expert panel and explaining how our DSIT-funded trial used Behavioural Systems Mapping to explore why the digital divide persists despite years of funding. The method found new leverage points for local interventions and was able to identify some of the emerging challenges for digital-first policies too, such as the increasing number of people choosing to reject smartphones and social networks.

On Thursday 10th September at 9.40am, we’ll be tuning in to Leader of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, Anthony Okereke’s Keynote Stage panel on innovation. What are the real-world use cases where automation and intelligence are driving tangible efficiency gains for public services? How do we prepare the workforce to use these tools safely, and build the public trust needed to make AI-driven growth inclusive? The conference promises to be an interesting forum.

London Real Estate Forum

Later in the month, we’ll be at the London Real Estate Forum (LREF) at Guildhall. On 16 September, CEO of DG Cities and Director of Digital Greenwich Connect, Trevor Dorling will be chairing a panel, Connecting London's Growth: Delivering the Digital Infrastructure for a World-Class City. The session focuses on the challenge of delivering digital infrastructure in London. The aim is to move the conversation beyond identifying barriers and shift the focus to some of the practical machinery of delivery, specifically how stronger collaboration between local government, developers, and telecommunications providers can unlock investment. We’ve been working on other exciting events too, from global innovation conferences to small leadership gatherings – more on that later.

In case you missed it…

New legislation on solar power

Have you bought your plug-in solar kit yet? Since the government legalised the sale of specific units from certain stores in August, we’re expecting to see many consumers take advantage of the cost and energy benefits of ‘balcony solar.’ But what does it mean for tenants – and social housing landlords? Balazs has written a guidance piece for housing managers highlighting some of the initial risks, opportunities and possible solutions, such as tenant toolkits.

Damp & mould in the news

The DG Cities team has been interested to read the new joint Chartered Institute of Housing and The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) guidance for tackling damp and mould, published last week. It's an area we've been working in for quite some time, delivering sensor trials, implementing them in Greenwich and designing innovations to prioritise repairs, streamline systems and deliver on improvements.

This paragraph, however, caught our eye: “Siloed working is one of the most common obstacles... Repairs teams acting without asset management context, or housing officers unaware of a property's repair history, make it harder to spot patterns and easier to miss systemic issues. Where capital investment is needed, for persistent cold homes, failed insulation, or ventilation systems installed but never maintained, that case needs to reach the people who can act on it.”

This is exactly the kind of issue we developed the Home-by-Home plan to address. Our tool gives housing asset managers that holistic overview. A single dashboard brings together different strands of the council or HA's own data, from handwritten maintenance notes to capital works programmes. If you’d like a demo (or just a chat), just get in touch.

Autonomous vehicles on the roads

In the latest self-driving vehicles news, Uber users are now able to book and ride in automated taxis powered by Wayve (with an in-car safety driver). Ed Houghton joined the stars at the grand launch last week. For a decade now, the DG Cities team has been working on trials, public engagement and government-funded research to understand the public implications of these new services. Our latest piece of work has been deliberative workshops to inform the DfT’s Statement of Safety Principles, which saw us travel up and down the country talking to a wide range of people about their understanding of what makes a driver ‘careful and competent’.

We have tracked shifting opinions over the years, moving from a lack of awareness to interest and concern about what these new services could mean. However, the key message to emerge from this piece of work, which directly informed policy, was that there has to be a real road safety benefit to change. Read more about it here.

More exciting project news on this area of our research soon, but for now, new pens out, fresh notebook at the ready and see you at some of autumn’s events!

And from our neighbours… a highlight of every September is the Open House Festival, a chance to see inside buildings and spaces usually closed to the public and often meet the teams involved in their design and operation. We’ve got our eye on a few great projects to visit on our side of London: a walking tour of the artists’ work breathing new life into the streets of Thamesmead, a trip to Sitopia regenerative farm at Shooters’ Hill and some of the innovative spaces within the Design District in North Greenwich, where we are based. Not to be missed!