The Slaithwaite (pronounced Slawit) Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) site first went on-line in June 1998 and was completely re-written in Java in January 2003 but became defunct again as the Java code became redundant over time.

The original system was developed when I worked in the CCG's on-line democracy group from 1997-2003 with Steve Carver, Ian Turton and Andy Evans. At the time James MacGill was a PhD student in our group developing GeoTools to help some of his research.

In 2022 after a seminar on GIS someone mentioned I should give it a reboot. So the version you see today was written for today, using the Leaflet JS library and the UK's OS maps API.

We wrote this up in two papers which you can access here containg some of the original screenshots and code:

• Kingston, R., Carver, S., Evans, A. and Turton, I. (2000) Web-Based Public Participation Geographical Information Systems: An Aid To Local Environmental Decision-Making. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 24(2), 109-125.
• Carver, S., Evans, A., Kingston, R. and Turton, I. (2001) Public participation, GIS and cyberdemocracy: evaluating on-line spatial decision support systems. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 28(6), 907-921.

The original version back in 1998 was developed before OS had any way of putting their (our!) mapping on the Internet. Back then they sent you the data on things called a CD-ROM and DVDs in the post by secure delivery!

Today you can find me here in the Department of Planning and Environmental Management at the University of Manchester, where I still research and develop PPGIS tools.

This includes my current £7m NERC funded Digital Solutions Hub.

Last updated 23 February 2022.