Ambitious plans to make Brighton and Hove the UK’s first open data city have been backed by the council.

Digital entrepreneur Greg Hadfield issued a challenge to the city’s leaders. He wants the city to join places like San Francisco and New York in making certain information, like council databases, freely available.

By integrating Wikis, government-specific social networking sites, blogs, RSS feeds and GoogleMaps, information can be made more immediately useful to residents.

Speaking at the first annual TEDx Brighton conference, Mr Hadfield, strategic director at Brighton-based digital firm Cogapp, set out a road map for the creation of a digital city.

He said: “Brighton should be up there with places like San Francisco and New York.”

He said the council, Sussex Police, charities and voluntary groups all had a crucial role to play in developing open data for the city.

A spokesman for the council said: “We certainly support the principle of becoming an open data city. The information the council holds could help fuel the work of brilliant thinkers and doers out there in a way which benefits everyone. There’s a great community of goodwill in the city, with people really willing to help the place they love. If it can work anywhere, it can work here.”

Further details will be outlined at City Camp Brighton on March 4-6. City Camp is three days of talks and workshops and hands-on hacking, reimagining the way the web, technology and participation will shape the future of our city. It brings together local government, business, community sector and academia to work together.

A spokesman for the event said: “We’ll be hearing inside views of the city from local leaders and getting inspiration from experts on social innovation and open data, discussing problems and launching new ideas.”

Do you support the Open Data City plans? Let us know what you think. Email: john.keenan@theargus.co.uk