This pilot project will create a data trust in a coastal community of 17,000 people, building the community’s capacity to use and share data securely in ways that benefit local people and organisations. The Brixham Data Trust will support collective decision-making about how to deploy local data resources. It will seek the community’s views on how data can facilitate placemaking and address environmental stewardship, health and wellbeing and net zero ambitions.

The Brixham Data Trust aims to develop a dynamic local data ecosystem to inform, engage, and test the use of real datasets within a 3km radius of the town centre. The pilot will explore how data trusts can connect civic engagement and environmental stewardship in coastal communities. It aims to support deliberative processes and to catalyse meaningful change based on an evidence base of data and data insights from the land and the marine environment.

The Brixham Data Trust pilot project is led by Natasha Nicholson (SWCTN Data Fellow) and Pamela Charlick from charlick + nicholson architects.