Big interview: Sunderland City Council's Liz St Louis

As Land Mobile readers will recall, last year we ran a feature article investigating the state of play when it comes to the progress of ‘smart cities’ across the UK. The conclusions reached in the piece were not necessarily completely positive, with the author suggesting that UK cities have “some way to go” before they can be regarded as truly ‘intelligent’ spaces.

Following that article – and by way of providing some good news – we published another piece on the same subject, but this time focusing on a smart city success story. This took the form of an interview with neutral host provider BAI, which has been working closely with Sunderland Council to provide connectivity across the city.

With that in mind, we are going to follow up on the follow-up, with a focus on the council itself. Whereas BAI mainly discussed the technology, however, Sunderland City Council’s Liz St Louis focuses on the variety of use-cases actually driving the rollout. She also goes into detail about the origins of the project itself, emphasising its importance, not just from a societal perspective but also to the local business environment.