Enfield Council has been awarded £50,000 from the Technology Strategy Board to carry out a feasibility study showing how it plans to increase residents’ quality of life by using the Council’s 17 libraries to help residents and local businesses access new technologies to help them find work , grow their businesses and strengthen community ties.

The borough is one of 30 councils which is bidding to win the £24 million “future city” prize. The feasibility study reports must be submitted by 14 November and the winning authority will be announced in January 2013 after assessments and interviews are carried out.

The future cities demonstrator project will outline the benefits of integrating a city’s systems. It will help city areas to find new ways boost the local economy and improve quality of life..

Enfield Council’s Cabinet Member for Business and Regeneration, Cllr Del Goddard, said: “Enfield is looking at as many ways as possible to rejuvenate the local economy .

“We have a substantial set of access points through our libraries and we want to make sure all our systems work well together and ultimately make Enfield a better place for residents to live in.

“Winning this funding would make a significant difference to our efforts to improve and rejuvenate our borough and we’ll be working hard with residents, businesses and our other partners so we have the very best chance of gaining this money.”

The city and borough councils that have each secured £50,000 funding for the feasibility studies are: Belfast, Birmingham, Brighton & Hove, Bristol, Cambridge, Camden, Cardiff, Coventry, Derby, Dundee, Enfield, Glasgow, Ipswich, Leeds and Bradford, Leicester, London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Nottingham, Peterborough, Plymouth, Salford, Sheffield, Southampton, Southend-on-Sea, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland, Swindon and Warrington.