Smart goals

Fawley Waterside will be Europe’s first purpose-built ‘smart town’. Data and technology will help the town to learn, adapt and evolve – and Southampton academics are helping to make this happen.

The ambitions for the site of the former Fawley power station are big. Outline planning permission has been granted to the developer, Fawley Waterside Ltd, for 1,500 homes and commercial facilities that could create more than 2,500 jobs on the site that overlooks Southampton Water. These 1,500 homes will be smart homes in a smart environment for a smart community – showcasing how we should live in the 21st century.

Fawley Waterside’s vision is ‘to build one of the most beautiful small towns in England’. The site is currently being prepared for development, with the decommissioned power station being demolished.

Expertise from the University will inform both the technological and sociological aspects of the innovative and trailblazing development as it takes shape.

Artist's impression of Fawley Waterside. Image courtesy of Fawley Waterside Ltd

Socio-technical input

For Fawley Waterside to achieve its ambitions, one necessity is to take a socio-technology approach to the development from day one –and this is where the University’s Web Science Institute (WSI) is stepping in.

The WSI is part of the Core Technical Group (along with Cisco, IBM, Siemens and Vodafone) that is charged with ensuring the town has ‘intelligent’ infrastructure. Back-end connectivity, customer data, high-capacity connectivity, smart energy and smart buildings are amongst the remit on which the group is advising Fawley Waterside – along with data protection and data privacy, which will sit at the core of all the technology.

Some of the potential applications in Fawley Waterside include a local social network, environmental monitoring, a services portal, smart homes (smart lighting, heating and energy meters, voice-controlled applications), and automated health monitoring.

The WSI’s expertise brings the technical and social aspects together. Dame Wendy Hall, Regius Professor of Computer Science and Associate Vice President (International Engagement), and Pauline Leonard, Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean (Research and Enterprise) in the Faculty of Social Sciences, are both Executive Directors of the WSI.

Artist's impression of Fawley Waterside. Image courtesy of Fawley Waterside Ltd

Dame Wendy said: “In the WSI, computer scientists and social scientists work together to understand how the provision of the technology might affect the people living in Fawley Waterside and how they, in turn, might shape the technological design and data governance policies. Data protection and data privacy is central to this and will be paramount in any plans for technology provision at Fawley Waterside.”

Professor Leonard, who has expertise in the sociological aspects of community building and community cohesion, added: “Large new communities, such as Fawley Waterside, are burgeoning throughout the whole Southampton and Hampshire region, as the area is a major target for housing and new development. Many of our small towns are escalating in size. This changes the social mix of the community as well as the balance between rural and urban.

“Many of these new estates are housing people from overseas, so the social backgrounds of people in the region are changing, bringing new questions about social cohesion, the multiculturalism of our towns and communities, and the kinds of community events which can bring people together.”

Find out more: fawleywaterside.co.uk

Artist's impression of Fawley Waterside. Image courtesy of Fawley Waterside Ltd