What is a Smart City?
We’re developing a smart city programme that will make Westminster an even better place to live, work and visit and we need your help to shape it.
For us, a smart city is a city that works for its residents, its businesses and its visitors. It’s a city that opens up opportunities, and empowers all its people to take advantage of them.
Whether you’re in Westminster as a resident, business owner, employee or visitor, we want to know what matters to you. Get involved today and help us create a smart city.
A Smart City
We believe a smart city is one that works for its residents, businesses and visitors. Watch this video that highlights how we are working towards a Smart City.
Find how your City will work smarter for you
What are we going to focus on?
Extraordinary experiences
For residents engaging with the council, employees heading to the office, or tourists exploring the city, we’ll use technology to make that experience extraordinary.
Clean tech city
Our future will be cleaner and greener. New technology will drive the changes we need to see – from improving air quality to achieving our net zero carbon targets.
Empowering people
We’re putting people at the heart of everything we do. We’ll support digital inclusion to improve our people’s skills and access so they can make the most of every opportunity and shape the city’s future.
Driving innovation
We want our city, businesses and communities to thrive, we’re championing creativity from all sectors. With our partners, we’ll promote growth, build resilience in our businesses and foster new opportunities.
Working together for a Smart City
We are at the start of an exciting journey. Our Smart City initiative will eventually touch on every aspect of council activity. There will be many ways you can get involved, for now here are some ideas to get you started, you can join in by:
Improving air quality at schools
We have installed air quality sensors at five schools across the city. The sensors installed raise awareness of air quality and encourage sustainable travel.
View near real-time air quality data
By being able to see the levels of air pollution, parents, carers, pupils and members of staff will be encouraged to choose more sustainable methods of travel such as walking, cycling or scooters.
The outcome of this project was that the number of children reporting they travelled to and from school by car, reduced by more than 20 per cent. Across the pilot, we estimate this represents savings of more than 3.5 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide annually, and represents a reduction of more than 90 lungs full of harmful Nitrogen Oxides.
As the pilot successfully raised awareness of air quality and encouraged sustainable travel, the scheme is now expanding to more schools in Westminster. This project is an example of our smart approach of utilising technology to engage our citizens and empower our communities to drive change.