The Old Town Hall building is located in the Ancient Market Place in Kingston upon Thames town centre  Credit: Sak2014/CC BY-SA 3.0

The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames is planning to design a digital platform to help citizens meet new people and get involved with activities run by voluntary and community groups.

The London borough has published an advance notification to alert potential suppliers to its plans to “develop digital tools that facilitate social-prescribing processes”. The platform, dubbed Connect Well Kingston, will enable community groups, charities, and public-services providers to refer people to one another. Residents will also be able to refer themselves to “non-clinical services or community activities”.

The Connect Well Kingston tool will “help individuals make positive changes in their lives and within their communities by linking people to volunteers, activities, voluntary and community groups and public services”, the borough said. 

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“This tool will help them to: feel more involved in their community; meet new people; [and] make some changes to improve their health and wellbeing,” it added.

A contract notice is expected to go out later this month, and Kingston intends to commence working with its chosen supplier on 1 June. The deal, which is scheduled to last until 30 September 2019, is expected to be worth around £100,000 to the winning bidder.

About 176,000 people live in Kingston upon Thames, which is one of four royal boroughs in the UK, alongside Windsor and Maidenhead, Greenwich, and Kensington and Chelsea. Located to the south of the river Thames, the borough’s biggest conurbation is the town of Kingston upon Thames itself. Chessington, New Malden, and Surbiton are also located in the borough.