Stoke-on-Trent City Council have been awarded £50,000 by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills sponsored Technology Strategy Board.

The award is for the council to carry out a feasibility study showing how they could integrate their transport, communications and other infrastructure to improve the local economy, increase quality of life and reduce impact on the environment.

On successful completion of the feasibility study Stoke-on-Trent City Council will also be able to submit a proposal for a large- scale ‘future cities demonstrator’, showing how the city’s multiple systems will be integrated and how challenges in the city will be addressed – and one successful city will be awarded £24m funding to implement their proposal.

Iain Gray, Chief Executive of the Technology Strategy Board, said

We planned originally to fund twenty feasibility studies but because of the number of high quality initial proposals received from councils across the whole country we decided to increase the funding available so that thirty studies could be carried out. The results will be made public and we look forward to seeing some exciting future city demonstrator proposals.

The feasibility study report, and proposal for a large scale demonstrator, must be submitted by the city council to the Technology Strategy Board by 14 November 2012. After assessment and interviews the winning proposal will be announced in January 2013.