Smart Benches in Forest Hill - what do you think?

Streetscape
#43

My two pence. As maybe one of the younger members of the community I see two sides.
Firstly, my initial thoughts were great, that sounds really good! However I see some serious limitations.

  1. Technology expires. What do we do when the benches are out of dated? Will there be easy upgrades available?
  2. What charging points would be on the benches? Would I need a specific phone to use it?
  3. Who would be in charge of maintaining the wifi signal?
  4. It could make people a target for mugging / attacks
  5. Would it quickly turn into the latest anti social hang out.
  6. What limitations on user connectivity would there be with the wifi?

Thoughts on locationā€¦
Outside the pool would actually be great in my location. Think of the children whoā€™ve been to swimming lessons who canā€™t contact parents / waiting for parents. It would also be essentially supervised by pool staff if any youngsters were to get into trouble if that makes sense. The other location where it would be useful in my view would be the train station. CityMapper is a wonderful thing when we get one of our famous sink holesā€¦ would be good to be able to use it guaranteed.

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#44

I said upthread on many occasions kids have had to charge their phone at mine to let their parents know they are on their way home. To me this is an important link with kids telling Mum or Dad they are on their way home from swimming , activities etc. Yes I will always allow this, but what about the day I am closed & kids & parents canā€™t communicate. It will always be that day something goes wrong that worries me.

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#45

Ah, okay, thatā€™s interesting. If you werenā€™t there kindly offering your charging services do you think they might save their batteries if they knew they needed to phone home? Just a thought!

#46

I donā€™t think so, I think they all get caught up in their free text messages (which I think a lot of parents include in their kids packages to make sure they always have contact) to each other which then drains their battery & they donā€™t think about it until they should be calling their parents to say they are on their way home & then start to panic about not getting in contact with them. Hence why I donā€™t mind any of them charging their phone to call their parents, as I would hope someone would let mine do the same so I wouldnā€™t be worried if they were running a bit late as long as they told me.

#47

Well, as someone who has had their kids mugged for their phones, I think charging them in your shop is definitely safer than this bench set up. If they couldnā€™t charge their phones and were running late and couldnā€™t borrow a friendā€™s phone to text me, Iā€™d rather they just came home, not stopped at a public charging point.

I think you are very kind looking out for the kids, Pauline, but you are also enabling them to not take the consequences of not thinking ahead. And I know that makes me sound ridiculously old- fashioned!

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#48

Really sad to hear that happened to your kids Rachael & definitely not old fashioned on your part.

Iā€™m just a big softie where the kids are concerned & think they are entitled to as much of a voice as the adults have.

I very much think all should be equal regardless of age, colour, religion etc.

#49

These things are amazing and getting so cheap. Parents concerned about their kids smart phones getting flat from too much snapchat shoukd put one in their bags.

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#50

I got my son one of these type things for Ā£1 from Poundland last week :slight_smile:

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#51

Thanks to all who have contributed. This will certainly not happen if people donā€™t see benefit and donā€™t want it.

I will talk to some school kids and I will visit the bench in Lewisham during this summer.

Some questions on the thread are valid, so I will ask powers that be to address them. (Vandalism, maintenance, security, technology obsolescence and cost)

Apologies for drip feeding information but below are other suggested destinations. Some of the places could do with a bench so having extra bits on it may not harm.

IMG_0119.JPG4160Ɨ2340 1.59 MB

Not really sure how it fits with other benches. Clutter comes to mind if in front of the pool.

And other proposed sites

I will feed in other locations suggested, but that will be decision for Perry Vale ward (Mayow Park, inglamere rd)

Lastly, we can include this as an item on the next assembly (Saturday 23rd September) and have views of people who have not seen it here.

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#52

Iā€™m all for it if location works @MajaHilton though not necessarily what I suggested. I think the kids would love this as opposed to us oldies deciding on this & lets face it, they are our future generations so we should listen to them :slight_smile:

#53

I think School kids should be able to voice opinions on this, so appreciate your comment here.

#54

@MajaHilton. The article in the first post, and then your subsequent picture a few posts ago show two different benches. Are there design choices? The first seem more appropriate to a modern town centre like Lewisham. IMHO the second one isnā€™t that bad from a design perspective.

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#55

@anon5422159 I want to create a ndw topic linked from this one. How do I do that?

#56

Please see instructions here. Itā€™s not obvious unfortunately - Iā€™ll see if I can put a better UI proposal to the developers.

#57

I believe its just the two pics are from a different perspective?

#58

Pic 1.

Pic 2

image.jpg436Ɨ603 167 KB

So no.

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#59

Oh sorry I had looked at all the various pics on the web for the Strawberry benches and they all looked the same a sort of plank combo?

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#60

Hi @starman yes there are design choices. Those two. I can ask for more photos if needed.

I did visit Lewisham bench and over 30 min I observed it (totally random). There were 4 people sitting on it at all times. Two men were heavily into their phones (one typing at times, one having an earpiece possibly listening to music). One lady was charging her phone while playing a game. Another man just was simply using it as a bench. Others sat down for 5 min and went. None of them could be described as teenagers(one was a small child). What was interesting is that people were happy in sharing the space while a nearby bench was empty. I spoke to the lady (who was charging her phone) and she thought the bench was great. She has heard about additional pocket chargers, but was not that keen on them. She was unaware of wifi of who the sponsor was. I did not ask about air quality monitoring? I will go again.

Vandalism was an issue as charge leads were not present. Also the bench design meant that the pavement under it is not easily swept( Second design seems not to have that problem)

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#61

This sounds like a great idea. A couple of my friends from the Far East have commented on how ridiculously far behind London is with public wifi access.

Free wifi in shops / cafes simply does not count, as you have to be a paying customer (which teenagers and students usually canā€™t afford), and donā€™t work half the time anyway.

We should also be building more public seating areas encouraging people to stop and relax, rather than always rushing between the shops, the station and our homes.

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Parklets
#62

I am the council officer working with Strawberry Energy on the smart benches.

It has been very interesting to see the views set out here and I welcome the various suggestions. Cllr Hilton identified a number of questions raised and I will attempt to answer them - apologies in advance if I miss anything out, feel free to come back to me.

Data security / misuse
The chargers on the benches only provide power and cannot carry data.
The bench collects data on the number and duration of charges but no personal data is collected that can relate to this.

To access the wifi users are asked to provide some personal data including name, email and age range. Strawberry Energyā€™s website sets out the terms under which this data is collected. This commits Strawberry Energy to the use of data in line with the Data Protection Act 1998 and that they will not sell or share personally identifiable information with third parties.

What happens if the benches become obsolete?

This is some information Strawberry Energy has given me:
ā€œThe Smart Benches are conceived as upgradable smart platforms. We can easily upgrade it with new features and technologies and can change the hardware to respond to changing technology or demand from consumers.ā€

How are the benches maintained. And what happens if the funder goes bankrupt?

The benches are maintained for free under the terms of a wayleave agreement covering 10 years that grants permission for the benches to be installed on Council land.

If the company goes bankrupt then there is a risk that future maintenance or removal of the benches falls to the Council. The only no-risk approach is not to have any benches.

What is the value of the benches?

This is commercially confidential, but my understanding is that similar designs have been purchased for around Ā£6,000.

Is there a problem cleaning underneath the benches?

Strawberry Energy acknowledge that there have been occasions when the existing benches have had debris trapped underneath them and are taking steps to amend their regular maintenance to address this. They note that when their maintenance crew clean the bench they also clean the surrounding area and will take particular attention to the space beneath the benches.

Security

A number of people have raised concerns that the benches could become targets for phone thefts. Given the widespread use of mobile devices in public places the installation of benches may not increase crimes of this type, although I recognise that they could become a focus for this. We are monitoring the use of the existing benches and thankfully so far no incidents have been reported. Again the only no-risk approach is not to have any benches.

I hope this covers points that people have raised and sorry for the lengthy post. As Cllr Hilton has said Strawberry Energy has proposed a number of locations in Forest Hill. These are currently being reviewed by service teams in the council to identify any potential issues and we will then seek wider views by placing a notice in each location and asking local groups such as the local assembly for input. Happy to flag up on here when we are moving forward on this.

As I am not too sure whether people automatically see posts they have expressed a view on I thought it might be helpful if I tag people who have commented on the issues above (apologies if this is not helpful).
@RachaelDunlop @Pauline @starman @Wynell @anon5422159 @Londondrz @MajaHilton

Also forgive my selection of username, I can assure you my powers are very limited. :slightly_smiling_face:

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