Dr Dave McKenna

This one is on the gate post of a school. My old school actually, funny I never noticed it before 🤷‍♂️

This one is on a wall in front of a Sainsbury. Someone has tried to highlight it with white paint.

Yes, have had a look at these and they show several benchmarks that don’t seem to exist anymore. Catch them while you can!

Good luck 🫡

Ooh, on your street! Jealous!

So, this one is on a trough which must be pretty rare, yes?

That one is definitely on our todo list 👍

Nice. What are you going to see? ⚱️

21st Century Councillors event - CfGS We’re excited to share news of a free 21st Century Councillor event taking place in Andover on 4 November – giving councillors and officers the chance to discuss how elected members can adapt, lead…

21st Century Councillors event - check it out!

www.cfgs.org.uk/21st-century...

Great project. Lovely that this article acknowledges the work in this space already done by @mapio.cymru and others

I've seen a couple of polls recently showing that public sector workers - or as Matt Goodwin has it, the new elite - have very different social attitudes to the rest of us. To which I say meh. Of course they do, and we should be very glad of it.

I’m at the National Tenant Scrutiny Conference. @louisemholt.bsky.social is doing the intro 💃🕺

#tpasconf25

This one was on a wall near me that I’d looked at a couple of times. Found it now.

Quietly sitting on a wall by a main road hoping nobody will notice.

Here is one hidden behind some ivy. Not any more….

It’s when Silver is there waiting for them that you know it’s serious

Ah, finally found the one on the church. This is slightly unusual as it features a bolt in the centre. The groove in the bolt gives you a horizontal line.

This one has its own personal milestone*, tucked away close to a wall.

(*benchmarks and milestones - sounds like local government performance management)

This one is an actual plate, on a house, near the ground.

I've found three near me.

The first is on the wall of the village hall, behind the bin.

From 1831 to the 1990s over 500,000 of these were made by the OS who, incidentally, had the power to enter homes etc to put them where they liked.

Anyhow, they are pretty much everywhere so you might find them near you.

Here is the fantastic OS interactive map: interactivemaps.uk/os-benchmark...

A horizontal line carved into a wall with three lines fanning out downwards from its centre.

I've discovered a new non-extreme, slow-sport that involves hunting down Ordnance Survey Benchmarks. It's like a laid back Pokémon Go I guess.

I case you don't know, OSBs are marks or plates placed on buildings, walls etc to show the elevation above sea level.

They often look like this...

UKAPA 2025 Conference UKAPA annual conference Ulster University~ Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK Thursday 11 – Friday 12 September 2025 (& Doctoral Conference, Wednesday 10 September 2025)

Hello, today I'm heading to Belfast for the UKAPA conference tomorrow - all things public administration with a nice academic / practitioner mix. Do say hello if you are going.

www.ukapa.org.uk/conference/u...

#ukapa25

@ukapa-1918.bsky.social

"Questions at council" is something which has come up a few times recently in bits of work we've done for councils in England. Some thoughts... (1/)

Got back from Greece last week 🇬🇷🏛️🏺🕺🕺🕺

I mean, professors have been looking young for a while.

Check out our featured case study of transition from committee to cabinet governance model, with a bountiful basket of top tips from #BrightonHoveCouncil. Essential reading for others looking to do this as it's packed with learning. #GovernanceChange #LocalGovScrutiny #ResidentFocused

Democratic innovation for change: A participatory corrective to deliberative hegemony - Oliver Escobar, Adrian Bua, 2025 The world faces social, political, economic, and ecological crises, and there is doubt that democratic governance can cope. Democracies rely on a narrow set of ...

🤔 What's the point of democratic innovation? Can it address crurrent crises and build democracies for the future?
💡In this new article @adrianbua.bsky.social and I argue that the field needs to strengthen its change-making orientation and capacity. Open access 👉🏼 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

A digital approach to reimagining democracy    - New Local Last month, New Local announced its partnership with Demos on Waves – the largest trial of digital democracy in Britain to date. The Waves project aims to create a digital democratic process that can…

“There is an emerging opportunity for councils to reimagine how democracy can be done better”.

Our Principal Practice Lead Liin Nur explains our ambitions for Waves – the biggest trial of digital democracy in the UK – and the solid foundations that the programme is built upon.