I was recently asked to talk (twice) about how the Bish dot net web site was set up and how it is used. Of particular interest was how local government in general, and wards and parishes in particular are involved in 'hyper-local' web sites.
The Bish site has pages by its local councillor (one of only 2% of Conservative ward councillor who have pages in the country - the Lib Dems have 7% and labour 1%), and by its Parish Council.
So its disappointing to see that the ward councillor has not been able to keep up his pages since he became Lord mayor - surely some interesting tales to be told about this ancient post! More of a problem is the failure of the Parish Council - always concerned to engage more people in its activities - to provide a more detailed account of what it is doing on your behalf. For example the significant re-opening of the village hall - just reported - deserves a prompt and full news story with plenty of pictures. But the council also needs first to provide full details about itself, and then encourage people to use the web site to air their views on what is important in local affairs. As a (random) example of the first look at Ashover PC's site (http://www.ashover-pc.gov.uk/id_index.html). Or look at http://www.parishblog.org/ to see another example where people do comment on local affairs.
Bish dot net has a growing national reputation for its village web site - and residents should be as proud of that as they are of the other amenities there - and they should make their voices heard on local affairs.
Its the 21st century way, right?
