Fun with Story Maps

Story maps are a useful addition to the mapping toolkit. The ESRI product allows anyone with a modicum of patience to create dynamic or just static map based presentations, then roll them into a fancy slide presentation fairly easily. There are nice tools that embed images and video, compare maps,…Continue readingFun with Story Maps

Places for everyone

For the last couple of years I have been supporting Crispin Hayes Associates / Cycle Path Services on a locally-based walking and wheeling project initiated by near neighbours Spott Community Association. Places for Everyone is a scheme that aims to create safe, attractive, healthier places by increasing the number of…Continue readingPlaces for everyone

Green Blue Spaces

A report for Sustaining Dunbar – prepared by Philip Immirzi – GET THE POINT LTD – March 2021 FINAL “Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of…Continue readingGreen Blue Spaces

How walkable and cycleable is East Lothian?

It depends. The following map shows some illustrative isochrones (a travel time concept similar to isodistance) evaluated using Travel Time’s (TT) app for QGIS. The layers were simplified for web display when imported into ArcGis.Continue readingHow walkable and cycleable is East Lothian?

Recording Local History – the 4th Statistical Account 2.0

Last summer I did a project with the good folk of the East Lothian Antiquarian and Field Naturalists Society to revamp the East Lothian Fourth Statistical Account website. I had previously made the web presence for the society, which included all the published volumes of the transactions since 1937 and…Continue readingRecording Local History – the 4th Statistical Account 2.0

Companies are exploiting failures of the market

Where companies are exploiting the failures of the market in which they operate, where consumer choice is inhibited by deliberately complex pricing structures, we must set the market right. So said Theresa May at the Tory party conference in 2016.

In 2016 I picked up a short consultancy contract with Cambium for Citizens Advice Scotland to report on business models that companies use in regulated markets that alleviate or exacerbate the so-called Poverty Premium.Continue readingCompanies are exploiting failures of the market

From Free to Infinity – How much does a Website Cost?

More than a long piece of string? This answer is of course: “it depends” Basically the more you expect from your website project, the wider the range of features and functions, the more bespoke the design, the more complexity you build in, the more content you have, the more it…Continue readingFrom Free to Infinity – How much does a Website Cost?

Our Locality How Refreshing

When we first setup the ourlocality network we had global ambitions. This of course didn’t happen. What did happen though was gratifying all the same. After 5 years of operation, we are on our 3rd server and refreshed the site at least 3 times, with the latest release occurring just…Continue readingOur Locality How Refreshing

Zero Waste Town Update

I’ve spent the last few days doing a rapid induction and handover of the Zero Waste Town project. It was not that long ago in August that I gave a short presentation to an invited audience and attended by the Environment Minister Richard Lochhead, who had swung by to make public that…Continue readingZero Waste Town Update

The Ridge Network

The Ridge is a local community interest company with big ambitions. There’s a market gap locally in the provision of traditional and new rural skills. Training opportunities for the young and those who are not in employment are decidedly limited and difficult to get to in a practical sense.Continue readingThe Ridge Network

Zero Waste Contract

We’re leading this work in association working with CW Hayes, a feasibility study to determine whether Dunbar could be come Scotland’s first Zero Waste Town. More info: Zero Waste Town, which sets out the brief and how the project aims to drive forward the zero waste agenda. Although we had…Continue readingZero Waste Contract

Rewarding Greener shopping: Minimum Viable Product

In 2007 I launched a Green Rewards programme on a shoe string budget, ie less than £50k (= my redundancy). More than a just demonstration website, the rewards programme was fully functional with 250,000 products advertised at its peak.Continue readingRewarding Greener shopping: Minimum Viable Product