FLINTSHIRE Council has revealed details of how a new project funded by the Welsh Government has allowed Mold to collect better data. 

Mold was one of the first towns to take part in the pilot scheme of Trefi SMART Towns Wales, which is a government funded project to raise awareness of how technology and data can help regenerate Welsh high streets. 

Flintshire Council, Mold Town Council and local business champion, Richard Howells of The Olive Tree Deli in Mold jointly created an Action Plan for Mold, the first town in Flintshire to pilot the project.

The Welsh Government provided a package of support which included free footfall counting equipment, called 'Cisco Meraki devices' which enables Flintshire Council and Mold Town Council to accurately assess the current level of shoppers and visitors in a particular area.

Having accurate data can allow businesses to make more informed decisions, and to analyse the effect of any events or interventions.

Cisco Meraki devices are wireless and can detect the presence of Wi-Fi enabled equipment in order to estimate the total number of people in a given area at a given time.

During the first stages of the pilot project, it became apparent that more equipment would be needed to provide adequate coverage of Mold Town which as a result led Flintshire Council to submit an additional funding application to Welsh Government through the ‘Digital Towns’ initiative, part of Welsh Government’s “Transforming towns’ investment programme.

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The funds were awarded to purchase additional digital equipment and the technical support to help with the installation of the devices.

The LoRaWan technology (Long Range Wide Area Network) offers a low power method of covering a wide area using radio waves to send data from sensors to the internet.

Mold was the first town to participate in the pilot project and the focus was to use the pilot project to learn about the technology, the benefits and lessons learned to help develop a larger plan to roll out similar technology across other Flintshire towns.

Councillor David Healey, Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Economy, Flintshire County Council said: "SMART technology is the way forward for our towns, helping to gather up-to-date, accurate data, and is a big improvement on traditional methods.

"The project gives us the capability for future improvements, and the evidence to support bids for investment – which is good news for everyone.’”

Sensors have been installed throughout Mold Town to measure footfall. People counters were also installed on the historic Bailey Hill site. The ability to monitor footfall will support the newly developed Bailey Hill Project demonstrate the impact of the recent redevelopment work to funders as well as supporting new funding applications going forward.

As well as this, a variety of other sensors were also installed to help support the maintenance of the site – this includes a temperature and humidity sensor, soil moisture sensor and bin sensors. The information received from these devices will help support Flintshire Council's Streetscene department with maintaining the site.