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In 2002 Barnsley toyed with a redesign as a Tuscan hill village as it sought out a brighter post-industrial future. In 2021 it adopted the airily vague slogan “the place of possibilities”. Now it is trying a different image: Britain’s first “tech town”.
The technology secretary, Liz Kendall, has anointed the South Yorkshire community as a trailblazer for “how AI can improve everyday life” in the UK.
In the latest move in Labour’s drive to inject AI into Britain’s bloodstream, the government has announced three US tech companies – Microsoft, Google, Cisco and Adobe – have agreed to help as the council pushes to apply AI to local schools, hospitals, GPs and businesses in Barnsley, an area of South Yorkshire which has struggled with unemployment and deprivation since the coal pits closed.
The town and its 250,000 people have been chosen because they have already adopted AI faster than many places, said Sir Stephen Houghton, the Labour leader of Barnsley metropolitan borough council. His authority has been using AI assistants for the last couple of years in adult social care and children’s services, and its bin lorries have been enabled with tech to scan roads for potholes. The parcel company Evri, which has one of its largest distribution hubs in the town, has been trialling robot dogs for deliveries.
But local opposition leaders have warned rebranding Barnsley as a tech town “might seem a bit of a leap” and highlighted local anxiety about whether AI is a force for good.
The “tech town” status means residents will get free AI and digital training, businesses will be supported to adopt AI, the hospital will test AI tools for check-ins, triage and outpatient care and AI will be tested in schools and at Barnsley College, all in an effort to improve pupils’ results and teachers’ workloads.
“The economic basis of Barnsley was destroyed 30 years ago,” Houghton said. “This is the biggest opportunity we have had since then. The future of the economy is going to be in technology and for Barnsley to be at the centre of that is an incredible opportunity.”
But one area of uncertainty is the role of the tech companies. Houghton said: “The council won’t be paying them. Whether the government is, we have to wait and see.”
Microsoft already has a relationship with Barnsley College and, along with Google and Cisco, is understood to be working on a pro bono basis.
“If we are going to get AI to work for Britain, we need Britons and British public services that can work with AI,” Kendall said. “If we can show that AI helps young people learn, supports local businesses to be more productive, and improves public services, then we can show what’s possible for the whole country. What we learn here will shape how we roll out AI across the UK.”
Ministers have faced criticism over their handling of big technology companies. Last week the government launched a national AI training programme to upskill 10 million citizens, but many of the online courses turned out to be bespoke training for customers of particular companies such as Google, others cost as much as £525 to complete and some simply promoted the merits of particular company’s approaches to AI such as one explaining Microsoft’s “responsible AI approach”.
A spokesperson for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said hundreds of courses on the AI Skills Hub are free and where payment is required it is clearly advertised. “All courses are reviewed against a common set of criteria to ensure they are relevant, high quality, and delivered by eligible organisations,” they said.
Ministers have also been challenged for holding meetings with tech bosses at the rate of more than once each working day. The government insists engagement is vital to create growth and transform services.
“It’s not about giving tech companies access to data they shouldn’t be having,” Houghton said. “It’s a secure programme and we are not leaving ourselves open. But this stuff is not going away. We have to make sure we are smart enough to protect people while taking advantage of the positive stuff it brings.”
Hannah Kitching, the leader of the council’s Liberal Democrat opposition, said investment in the town was welcome but “there is a lot of anxiety among people about the use of AI and whether it is a force for good. We know it could be but there are darker sides as well.”
“[Barnsley] is still really connected to its mining past,” she said. “Younger people see the jobs and opportunities around the tech town idea but older generations perhaps don’t. There is a job to be done to get people onboard.”
Residents “want the council to get the basics right”, she said. Roads were “absolutely crumbling” and in bad weather bins did not get collected, she added.
