Meet the innovator making streets better with community insight
Jon Little of BetaStreets is on a mission to democratise the design of public spaces, and is scaling his business with help from Connected Places Catapult.
People can be fearful of change, especially local residents asked to consider new parking arrangements or street designs. Jon Little should know: he’s spent the last 20 years working with communities in London on schemes aimed at restricting vehicles.
Jon has learnt that getting people more involved in shaping the places they live tends to lead to greater acceptance of proposals that promise improved road safety or better facilities for cyclists.
So to help “democratise the process” and “change the way our industry works” Jon and his BetaStreets co-founder Andy Heather have developed software to help locals shape the design of highways and the public realm.
“If you don’t involve people, they will feel like things are being done to them,” he observes. “Before you know it, the front page of the paper will feature a picture of people with their thumbs pointing down. We created BetaStreets to make street design more accessible.”
Two years ago, the company was supported on the Rural Transport Accelerator – delivered by Connected Places Catapult on behalf of the Department for Transport – to develop a 360 degree ‘image compatible design’ visualisation tool called RuralStreets 360 (now BetaStreets 360). The enhanced software included a community engagement module, allowing people to place street furniture and highway infrastructure on a touchscreen, and offer comments.
It was used by Suffolk County Council to improve engagement around active travel proposals in Woodbridge and Ipswich, and seek the comments of children in Felixstowe before redesigning the street outside their school. The council and nearby authorities have since purchased licences to use the product.
BetaStreets is now offering 360 degree image capture using bicycles or electric vehicles to create immersive worlds for design and community engagement.
Diatomic develops software platform
Last year, BetaStreets was accepted on to the Diatomic Digital Accelerator in the West Midlands to make BetaStreets 360 compatible with digital twins, to help project owners understand if proposals could lead to unintended consequences in the real world.
“This product, called BetaStreets Digital, has opened up a whole new commercial area for us,” says Jon.
Early in 2026, the firm was also shortlisted for an AI in Transport competition run by the Catapult; to take the product one step further.
“Working with Connected Places Catapult has been transformational,” he says. “They helped us to challenge and question ourselves, and improve how we present the company to different audiences. We have grown exponentially recently, and this has gone from being a side hustle to our main employment.
“Participating in the Rural Transport Accelerator enabled us to build and demonstrate our product, secure office space and add to our team.”
More recently, he says Diatomic “is opening up opportunities” with regional authorities and universities in the West Midlands and other UK cities. The software was trialled by Birmingham Knowledge Quarter – an innovation district and urban regeneration project – and Birmingham City Council on active travel projects, to get the views of local people at several engagement events.
Residents get involved
Local people engage with the BetaStreets platform by either commenting on a proposal – such as introducing cycle parking on a residential road – or creating their own visions of a future streetscape.
Everyone’s designs are collated, and a digital twin highlights problems and offers solutions. It can suggest where infrastructure might best be placed, based on comments received, and can also predict what impact proposals might have on road safety, or how resilient they might be to flooding.
Jon adds that public engagement has traditionally been addressed over a short timescale – and usually too late. “But there has to be a continual exchange of ideas with local communities about their streets.”
Developing detailed technical drawings too early without proper consultation could lead to wasted time and money, he suggests. “Local authorities need to do all they can to get their designs right first time, more often. If people can see what the future might look like, they may be happier.”
Jon is a passionate cyclist and football fan, and two summers ago boarded a ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland with his trusty folding bicycle and rode 160 miles to Gelsenkirchen in Germany and back to watch England play in the Euros football tournament.
Almost all the way, he enjoyed riding along a segregated cycle track that forms part of a large connected network. “Cycling is mode of transport that makes the most sense,” he adds, “especially in cities.”
Football stadia and the Olympics
Jon’s career began as a traffic engineer for Mouchel Parkman designing road safety improvements, controlled parking and 20mph zones.
He later worked on a local transport plan ahead of an expansion of Twickenham Stadium, and was involved in transport planning for the Emirates Stadium to encourage Arsenal fans to use public transport rather than drive on match days.
He moved to consultant Project Centre to lead on parking and sustainable transport, worked on a traffic management plan for the London 2012 Olympic Games, and project managed the design of the first 650 London cycle hire docking stations.
Jon later developed a ‘Mini Holland’ low traffic neighbourhood in Waltham Forest to improve cycle routes, enhance the public realm and calm traffic by “turning part of the borough into something like the Netherlands”.
He set up Bespoke Transport Consulting to deliver a similar ‘liveable neighbourhood’ scheme in Brixton, and worked on several walking and cycling schemes in Manchester, Southampton and Bristol before co-founding BetaStreets in 2021.
Jon says his ambition is for more places to become healthier, more liveable and with less pollution and vehicular traffic – and ultimately for BetaStreets to be a known as a piece of software used to make streets better.
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