Slides presented at Connected Local Government Live 2017 28 June in planning workshop

1. Digital Infrastructure Mapping
in Greater Manchester
David Hodcroft
28 June 2017

3. Mayor
Bolton
Bury
Manchester
Oldham
RochdaleSalford
Stockport
Tameside
Trafford
Wigan

5. Our aim is to be:
• A sustainable and resilient city with the highest
environmental standards in the UK
• An internationally competitive city, renowned for its
economic achievement and vibrant cultural scene
• A genuinely inclusive city with opportunities for all of
our citizens.
• Make a net contribution to the UK economy as a result
of growing our business base
• Now we have a Mayor - deliver his Manifesto
Ambition for Greater Manchester

6. A net contributor to the national economy
£-
£5
£10
£15
£20
£25
£30
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
£bn
Total GM spend (incl. proportion of national spend) Total GM Tax income
• A vision to move GM from being a Tax taker to a Tax generator to
national public finances
• GM’s economy currently generates £20 billion in taxes but requires
£27 billion in public spending

7. Two pillars: growth and reform
– To master plan and deliver the
investment necessary in the critical
and existing infrastructure required to
support growth
Two themes
GROWTH - creates high quality places
that will attract and retain more productive
people and businesses
REFORM – reforms the way public
services are delivered to improve
outcomes for residents
Infrastructure Priority

8. What’s the problem?

9. • How can developers make better decisions about where to build?
How can we bring together and open up data from multiple
organisations?
• How can we utilise spatial information that integrates key infrastructure
and growth data?
• How can we align wider priorities in space (geography) and time,
supporting the development of smart cities?
• We wanted ‘something’ to help:
 Frame questions on critical issues that impede delivery
 Improve costs, efficiency and programme certainty
 Supports moves towards online planning, with the low-cost ability to
adapt as new data, standards and conditions become available.
Why did we build MappingGM?

10. • Funded through release of data programme managed by
ODUK/Cabinet Office.
• Launched in 2015 - first open map for public and private
infrastructure data in GM
• MappingGM is simply, a website with maps on it
• We’ve added more data and more potential uses over time
• We have the ability to access and use lots of spatial
information
What is MappingGM

11. Challenging different views
“I want an interactive super map that
does everything, cleans my house, irons
my clothes and makes me breakfast in
the morning…..”
“You can’t do that – the political /
commercial / security / personal data*
risk is too high!”
* Delete as appropriate
• Good idea, but that will cost
• Open data isn’t just about
transparency
• Isn’t there something more basic
that’s needed?
• We can use open data to help make
better decisions
• Can we build ‘just a map’?
• One of the primary users of open data
is often overlooked: the public sector
SOLUTION: Let’s start small and build up
from there
SOLUTION: No option is risk-free – we
need to proactively manage and reduce
risk

12. What did we do?
10 local
authorities
9 datasets
each
5 – 6 files per
dataset
.tab
.xls
X X
Data sourcing
Data
cleansing
Building
map
Testing Feedback
500+
local authority
data files
205
private sector
data files
9GB
private sector data
collated
60+ datasets
mapped
from 29 organisations
88% Proportion of LA
datasets received
9 new data
schemas

13. GMODIN: our first map

14. Broadband speeds in the city centre

15. Or house prices across England

16. References the data source
NB - need to keep data up to date therefore the need to link to sources so this
happens automatically

17. The risks and pitfalls
Risk Solution
Local authority data availability
Use the map to highlight missing data;
be prepared to wait
Variety of data formats
Accept anything; build a bottom-up
data schema
Bringing together public and private
data
Data sharing agreements in place;
agree what can and can’t be shown
Lack of officer / leader engagement
Identify benefits of approach to key
leaders / officers
Commercial / security / political risk Not everything has to be open
Legal risk from reliance on data
Always direct back to data producers;
provide terms and conditions

18. Usage and uptake
• Positive feedback from LEP and Infrastructure
Advisory Group
• Developers interested in accessing source
data
• Consultants interested in bespoke maps and
new data additions
• Utilised by residents to check Green Belt and
general planning issues
• Positive feedback from MPs and Council
members
• Strong interest from the wider public sector

19. Did it answer the exam question?
Partly…..
• Questions on infrastructure remain. What are the
issues, what is the capacity, how much will it cost
to remediate?
But has unlocked many opportunities
• Single Housing Investment pipeline for Greater
Manchester – support collaboration with the HCA
• Brownfield land register
• Identified supply of public land
• Support the Land and Property Board
• Greater collaboration

20. Supporting strategic (and ‘Spatial’)
planning
• GMSF is a joint spatial development plan for
Greater Manchester
• Need to understand land supply and demand
• Need to relate this to people and places
• Supply may be difficult to understand – where
and when is land available?
• We built a map to identify potential land supply

21. Making our existing supply of sites available
to potential investors’ and residents

22. GMSF call for sites: submission

23. GMSF call for sites: submission

24. What more can we do?
• Once a site is submitted, we can run spatial
queries:
• What proportion of the site is within a flood
zone?
• Is the site near a heritage asset?
• Can do this once for all sites not X10
• Queries can be amended and if we have the
spatial data, we can query sites
• This can be replicated on any map – we now
have multiple maps for different uses

25. Participation, engagement, consultation
and tokenism
• Planning consultation needs to engage with the
public, businesses etc who relate to places
• What are the outcomes we are trying to
achieve: livable, happiness, wellbeing - good
places to live
• Often, local plans are big, long, wordy
documents, with lots of supporting documents
• What if you could visualise plans on a big,
interactive map?
• You can – there’s plenty of great examples

26. Draft GMSF: total land supply

27. GMSF: new allocations

28. GMSF: Link to Objective and the Policy

29. No escaping .pdfs and mega files
In addition to the Draft consultation Plan
• 23 background documents
• The Strategic Housing Market Assessment is 237
pages
• The table on total dwellings – the most frequently
asked question is on page 209
• Some fascinating facts on people and places
• But only the most determined read and review the
background reports!
• Don’t even mention the integrated assessment…..

30. Taking people with you requires a story
they can understand and support

31. And infrastructure hasn’t gone away
27,000 contributing consultees
• Overwhelming majority in relation to Green Belt sites
• Infrastructure provision – transport but also schools and
health services
• Brownfield before greenbelt
• Loss of open space
• Housing needs to affordable
• Transport network already congested – how will it cope?
• Needs to make sure existing flooding, air quality issues
are not made worse
• Challenge to growth figures – too high or too low.

32. Where are we taking things?
Call for Sites – users submit
potentially suitable sites for
development, and we can
automatically assess them
Joint development plan
consultation – spatially
representing proposed planning
documents and policies
Accessing planning application
data across multiple boroughs
Common socio-demographic data –
introducing self-service mapping
Understanding public land and
assets – how can land and property
be better used across the public
sector?
Exploring new data analysis
options and tools for the public
sector

34. Thank you
David Hodcroft
Greater Manchester Combined Authority
Planning and Housing Team
Phone: 07973876931
e-mail: david.hodcroft@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk