Robot street cleaners trialled with new funding

Robots are to be trialled in Milton Keynes after government investment was announced

A city already known for its technological innovations is set to benefit from almost £800,000 to trial robots that will help clean pavements and de-ice streets.

There are almost 2,500 technology businesses in Milton Keynes - and one in three jobs are linked to the industry.

Now the city is set to receive government funding as part of almost £9m allocated to various projects it said could allow "the UK's innovators [to] get new technologies out of the lab and into use sooner".

Baroness Liz Lloyd, under-secretary of state in the department for science, innovation and technology, said the funding for the city's robot trials could "benefit the public" while creating new jobs in the industry.

Minister Liz Lloyd said the new technology would benefit the public and create jobs in the technology sector

The government said "slashing the red tape that holds back ground-breaking innovations from coming to market" should help new technologies.

The £8.9m funding boost, following the Regional Investment Summit, has been allocated to 16 projects, including Milton Keynes.

The city is already piloting autonomous buses and has robot delivery vehicles, but some are excited about the regulatory changes this government buy-in could signal.

Ian Pulford, the director of Smart City Consultancy in Milton Keynes, said the city was "quite progressive and is keen to push barriers, but even so [it] still needs the support of central government".

"We know what needs to be done technically and what needs to be done commercially," he said.

Ian Pulford said he was excited at the prospect of the government funding

Speaking about the funding, Baroness Lloyd added: "We're going to support more robots here in Milton Keynes on the streets, doing jobs that are really going to benefit the public such as cleaning, surveying, looking for trip hazards and that kind of thing."

While the robots being trialled were not built in Milton Keynes, the network and support needed to run them safely on the streets was developed locally.

Baroness Lloyd said people she had spoken to were excited, adding: "They've got apprentices working on these projects, on the technology side, so I think there are job gains to be had here."

Asked about more robots taking on jobs in the city, one Milton Keynes resident said she was unsure as "there's not enough known about them", however, she said she believed jobs could be created, as "when they go wrong, do we need a human to pick it up?".

Another said he was concerned about "reduction of the current jobs".

It is thought the trials of the robots will take about a year before they are seen doing their proposed jobs on the streets of Milton Keynes.