Falkirk Council chosen to receive up to £25,000 for geospatial data project

Falkirk Council has been chosen as one of four local authorities across the UK to receive funding of up to £25,000 to use geospatial data to improve services operations or policy.

The Open Data Institute chose four councils to receive support and advice during the rollout of the projects, with Falkirk selected alongside Oxfordshire County Council, Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council and Bath and North East Somerset Council.

With each authority set to receive between £15,000 and £25,000 from the ODI to conduct research during the first three months of 2019, Falkirk Council will create a mapping platform to help citizens and local groups find and access services and resources – such as food banks or community gardening schemes.

The Fairer Falkirk project will work with geographic data specialist thinkWhere. Local groups will be encouraged to add data to OpenStreetMap – a free global wiki mapping platform.

Leigh Dodds, head of data infrastructure at the ODI, said: “These four projects show the diverse application of geospatial data, from assessing cycling routes, to mapping community kitchens.”

“They will explore collaborative approaches to data collection, management and use that draw on resources and support from across the UK’s geospatial data infrastructure including, the Ordnance Survey, OpenStreetMap communities and local open data groups.”

Oxfordshire County Council will lead a consortium in developing an open-source tool for analysing local cycling routes, with the goal of helping design transport policy, while Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council will work on a project to crowdsource data on accessibility issues across the borough.

Meanwhile Bath and North East Somerset Council will work with Geopxhere, a provider of cloud-based geographic information systems, on a project to release more data it believes could be put to use by external parties in the community.