Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Adrian Chandler and Jennifer Jordan.

In accordance with Council Procedure Rule 23(j), Councillor Mike Parsons attended as a substitute for Councillor Chandler and Councillor Philip Brooker attended as a substitute for Councillor Jordan.

In accordance with the revised local Code of Conduct, a councillor is required to disclose at the meeting any Disclosable Pecuniary Interest (DPI) that they may have in respect of any matter for consideration on this agenda.  Any councillor with a DPI must not participate in any discussion or vote regarding that matter and they must withdraw from the meeting immediately before consideration of the matter.

If that DPI has not been registered, the councillor must notify the Monitoring Officer of the details of the DPI within 28 days of the date of the meeting.

There were no disclosures of interest.

To confirm the minutes of the Executive Advisory Board meeting held on 8 September 2016.

The Committee confirmed the minutes of the meeting held on 8 September 2016. The Vice-Chairman signed the minutes.

With the agreement of the Chairman, the Energy Management and Sustainability Officer will make a presentation to the EAB discussing Smart Cities from a perspective of energy, climate change and sustainability.

There will also be presentations from two guest speakers. Chris Buttress (Senior Partner in the Local Government Section - PWC) will address broad societal trends. Jeremy Watson (President of the Institute of Engineering Technology, Professor of Engineering Systems at UCL and Chief Scientist and Engineer at the Building Research Establishment) will discuss the role of digital and enabling technologies in delivering the cities of the future.

The Board are invited to review the documents included in this agenda as background reading:

·         Smart Cities: Background Paper

·         Smart Cities – Time to involve the people? An Insight Report from the Institute of Engineering and Technology

·         What’s possible in an intelligent city?

Any additional information and presentation slides received will be circulated before the meeting date. 

The Lead Councillor for Internal Business Systems, Heritage and the Arts introduced the speakers, and noted that the meeting would provide the Board with the opportunity to embrace knowledge of new technologies and gain an understanding of what an increasingly interconnected world might mean for Guildford. 

The Energy and Sustainability Officer gave a presentation on the importance of sustainability, energy management and climate change and provided definitions of a Smart City, examples of potential improved sustainability for the future and factors for the EAB to consider.

Tim Pope (Senior Manager at PWC) gave a presentation summarising five global mega trends that would shape the future, which included rapid urbanisation, demographic and social change, climate change and resource scarcity, a shift in global economic power and technological breakthroughs.

Professor Jeremy Watson (President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology) and Nigel Ward (Past IET Trustee & Honorary Treasurer) gave a presentation covering the work of the IET, how developments in technology would shape the cities of the future and the interdependency between technology and society.

Questions from the Board raised the following points and information:

·         The Smart City approach would change the way that housing was supplied. Components would be manufactured off-site; these components could then be assembled quickly and cheaply.

·         The cost of technology had reduced significantly since the 1960s. Therefore, new technologies such as sensors that would help elderly people to live independently for longer would become easily affordable. This had the potential to provide huge savings for central and local government. Regulations could be set out requiring all new homes to be fitted with these technologies.

·         In the U.S approximately 500 driverless cars were being used daily and their use could be adopted quite quickly worldwide.

·         Smart meters were a fundamental part of future cities and in the future all meter readings would be sent through the cellular network. The University of Surrey was the leading university for 5G cellular communication and received a lot of funding from Telefonica and the ordnance survey. It would be useful for the Council to link up with the University to discuss this.

·         The Council should take an open view towards opportunities that the Smart City agenda could bring, rather than formulating a Smart City strategy.

·         The establishment of a cross-party working group to examine possible opportunities for the Council by speaking to academics and companies could prove beneficial. This would prove valuable to technologists, by helping them to identify needs as well as allowing the Council to discover available technology.

·         Although in its infancy, personal energy storage would become a viable proposition, and Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX was planning to use battery technology as local energy storage in homes. This would prevent over-reliance on the national grid.

·         The Board noted that the Guildford car club was very useful. In order to encourage people to use the club it was important to be able to offer something attractive and different, such as personal user profiles incorporated into the cars.

·         Board  ...  view the full minutes text for item S26

To consider and approve the EAB’s draft work programme.

The Board considered and noted the EAB work programmes.

The Board considered progress with matters previously considered by the EAB.