LocalGov Drupal Camp London: A day of shared purpose, passion and progress

In July, I had the pleasure of joining a fantastic crowd of digital thinkers, makers and doers at this year’s LocalGov Drupal Camp in London. Held at the Abbey Community Centre in Westminster, the event brought together a diverse mix of people from councils and suppliers across the UK – the mix of disciplines and roles was highlighted in a fun exercise right at the start of the day – all united by a shared ambition: to build better digital services for the public. 

The night before the event, Annertech’s Managed Services Director Anthony Lindsay and I grabbed some street food by the Thames, soaking up the architecture and engineering feats around us – the juxtaposition of historic buildings and modern sky scrapers seems to become more apparent with each visit to the area – and we talked about the LocalGov Drupal project and looked forward to the day to come. 

In the morning, we were joined by Annertech’s Director of Delivery, Mike King, who has led the delivery of numerous LocalGov Drupal projects. 

It was one of those hot London days where you’re grateful for the wide open windows. The building had a great charm with several floors and the Sancho room at the very top of the building was a bit on the cosy side, but there was water aplenty to help us keep cool. 

There was a great energy throughout. The programme was fantastic with many sessions and people moved fluidly throughout the day, chatting in the café area between sessions in the large Parker Morris room and other rooms. 

No sessions were recorded, so although we can’t watch recordings on YouTube, I think it only added to the sense of being present. 

As Anthony put it, “there was a lovely vibe about the place. A general sense of collective excitement and positivity.” 

Immersing Annertech into the community 

That spirit carried through from the opening session. The LocalGov Drupal core team did a brilliant job of kicking things off. 

An inclusive icebreaker helped everyone find their feet, and the project update gave us valuable insights into the growing impact of the platform. It was great to see stats being used to both measure impact of work and to tell a story. 

During the ice breaker, it was fantastic to see Kevin Ching, Developer from the Solihull team, announce the Solihull website launch to the community. We were really proud of this project, and it's so exciting when a new website launches.

The new website of Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council.

One standout moment for me was being able to officially represent Annertech as a new LocalGov Drupal development partner. Anthony and I were invited to the stage during the introductory session to talk about Annertech’s role within LocalGov Drupal. 

Anthony spoke about Annertech and our team and culture. I took the opportunity to thank Agile Collective for their excellent knowledge transfer in June. Their generosity and openness have helped us hit the ground running, and we’re very much aligned on the vision for the project. 

Tony Barker and Anthony Lindsay address the attendees at LocalGov Drupal Camp 2025. Picture: Jimmy Lee/LocalGov Drupal

As proud Gold Sponsors of the event we had a stand in the Parker Morris room, where Mike was often to be found having interesting discussions throughout the day and we later posed for a group photo with other supporters of the event.  

Mike (far left, standing), and Anthony and Tony (both in bright blue A-team T-shirts) join organisers and attendees at LocalGov Drupal Camp 2025 for a picture. Picture: Jimmy Lee/LocalGov Drupal

Session highlights 

The day was packed with engaging talks and thought-provoking discussions. A few highlights from the day were: 
 

• “How can we develop an intranet as a product?” – A riveting session from Sucharitha Revanuru (Essex County Council) and Craig Barker (Cumberland Council), where they gave insights into their journey using LocalGov Drupal for intranets. Sucharita’s passion for best practices really shone through. 
• “AI-powered LocalGov Drupal” – I was sad to have a clash with Jamie Abrahams’ session but I was later delighted to learn that I could spin up a session to explore some of the experimental AI features in LocalGov Drupal on Drupal Forge. 
• “How LocalGov Drupal flourishes within the Drupal Ecosystem” – I co-presented this session with Finn Lewis (LocalGov Drupal's Tech Lead), where we explored the strengths in community and contribution, how we have relationships with similar projects, a little about the technical stack and how we can use tried and tested strategies to help the project to thrive. We also covered the project’s migration from Github to Drupal.org and how the credits system can benefit councils and suppliers.

Tony Barker and Finn Lewis share a joke during their LocalGov Drupal Camp 2025 session. Picture: Jimmy Lee/LocalGov Drupal

• Tech Drop-in – Directly following our ‘ecosystem’ session, we held a hybrid online and in person edition of our weekly LocalGov Drupal tech drop-in session, which gave attendees a great chance to take part in hands-on Q&A and open discussion, just the way a camp should be. Among other things, we discussed theming in LocalGov Drupal, bookings systems and the forthcoming Drupal 11 upgrade. There were also popular sessions on publication imports, technical roadmaps and platform improvements amongst many others. People had come ready to contribute and engage, not just consume. 

Evening drinks co-hosted and sponsored by Annertech and Platform.sh 

Everyone was enthused by the day that conversations from earlier carried on into the evening, this time with a drink in hand and some top-notch nibbles at The Barley Mow. 

We talked about a couple of the initiatives that Annertech is working on, to make images easier to use in LocalGov Drupal and on the AI front, we had fun performing a little AI experiment to change the colour of a photo of a chair and got some impressive results. 

The upstairs bar was packed, with people attending from all over the UK and Ireland. I always find that getting to know people in person adds a richness to our remote working relationships. At the end of the evening, people headed for dinner, sleep or to begin their homeward journeys. 

Looking ahead 

To help make technical choices for LocalGov Drupal as product developer, I found the day incredibly useful – but more than that, genuinely motivational. 

The passion in the room reminded me just how meaningful our work is. Sometimes as engineers we focus on interfaces and code, and LocalGov Drupal Camp allowed us to shift focus to residents and council teams. 

If you’re not yet involved with LocalGov Drupal, I can’t recommend it enough. Whether you’re from a council, a supplier or simply curious, head to localgovdrupal.org to learn more. 

We are looking forward to LocalGov Drupal Week later this year, which is an online event. Stay tuned for details.