Ministerial Visit to Celebrate Dundee Office Expansion

Urban Foresight was delighted to host Minister for Trade, Investment and Innovation Ivan McKee MSP at our offices at the Flour Mill, Dundee on Friday.

The visit celebrated our recent move to the Flour Mill to accommodate our growing team of specialists, and the support provided by Scottish Enterprise through a Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) grant.

Mr McKee said: “I am delighted to see a forward-thinking company like Urban Foresight fully engaged in driving forward our Scottish Cities Alliance smart cities ambition.

“Their presence will help build on Dundee’s reputation as a centre for design and innovation and bring to fruition the wider vision of Scotland’s 8th City, the Smart City.

“Scottish Government and our agencies are supporting businesses like Urban Foresight to take advantage of the opportunities that come from Scotland’s established strengths in innovation and technological change. We look forward to seeing the business grow.”

Scottish Enterprise head of inward investment Graeme White said: “Urban Foresight is at the forefront of smart city projects in Scotland and across the world.

“Scottish Enterprise is proud to support the company’s expansion plans whilst also working with the team on projects delivering sustainable transport solutions in Scotland too.

“The investment has fuelled expansion and in turn highlights Scotland as a place for innovative companies like Urban Foresight to thrive.”

During the visit, Urban Foresight’s CEO, David Beeton, gave a presentation highlighting the importance of the work produced through our partnership with Dundee City Council for smart and sustainable mobility, locally and nationally.  This includes the Mobility Innovation Living Laboratory project (The MILL) a £2million programme running to 2022 to make Dundee a test-bed for transport innovation. It is funded by Dundee City Council, the Scottish Cities Alliance and the European Regional Development Fund.

Deputy convener of Dundee City Council’s city development committee Councillor Mark Flynn said: “We are proud to say that we have been in the forefront of innovation and investigation of low and zero emission transport solutions for a number of years and The MILL projects form a key part of that.

“Through this type of successful partnership working Dundee remains committed to maintaining and enhancing that position for the benefit of not just the people who live here, but people across the globe.”

Urban Foresight Director Rachel Beeton said: “We had served clients in Dundee and across Scotland from our base in Newcastle in the past. Following award of the contract to manage The MILL, we were delighted to have the chance to move to a permanent base in Dundee in January 2018.

“Scottish Enterprise supported us to expand and create a fully-fledged Scottish consultancy team to allow us to work more closely with our customers.

“We forecast to reach 11 employees next year, which is phenomenal considering we’ve grown from a team of one to eight in a year.”

Since establishing the team in Dundee we have supported several other public and third sector organisations in developing their ambitions for exciting smart and innovation projects across Scotland. Projects have included a low carbon, renewable energy transport hub project with Perth and Kinross Council and a mountain bike hub in the Scottish Borders with Scottish Enterprise. We have also supported Tayside’s regional transport body TACTRAN in developing ambitions around Mobility as a Service and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.