Yorkshire tech firm partners with world’s largest mapping company to help build happier cities

The platform is the result of years of work by the Yeme Tech team including its founder and CEO Amir Hussain, who is Deputy Chair of Housing Regeneration and Place at West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

Mr Hussain believes the CDP will create happier, healthier and more engaged neighbourhoods by empowering councils and developers to identify facilities and events which residents actually need and will frequent.

Yeme Tech plans to take this approach global after signing a partnership deal with Esri UK, part of the world’s largest provider of geographic information system (GIS) software Esri Inc.

Esri UK’s customers include HS2, Sustrans, Sport England, National Trust, The Environment Agency, Ordnance Survey, Greater London Authority and more than 200 local authorities in England and Wales.

Mr Hussain said the platform not only measures community resources - such as schools, shops, green space, libraries and cultural assets - but also local stakeholders, local events and the activities of local groups.

He said: “Society has changed beyond all recognition over the past 30 years. The failure of places to keep pace with change is understandable but means towns and cities across the UK, like those across the world, have lost track of the needs and wants of local people.

"This leads to places losing their sense of identity while loneliness, exclusion and community fragmentation are having profound impacts on health and wellbeing.

“The death of retail and the High Street offers councils and developers a bold opportunity to reinvent their neighbourhoods by strengthening existing social and community assets and strengthening relationships with local stakeholders.

“It can be very complex and time-consuming to regenerate our towns and cities to adapt to meet the current and future needs and wants of their citizens.

“What our Community Data Platform does is provide granular local detail in real-time to strip away the complexity and enable planners and developers to work with local communities to deliver successful urban planning which provides the facilities and social infrastructure that people need and want.”