MP Backs Local Community Web Sites

3.18.37pm UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 22nd Mar 2005

Vincent Cable, MP, secured an adjournment debate in parliament on Friday to draw attention to the pioneering work of the independent community websites in the borough - the ten portals which form part of Richmond-Online.co.uk - and the potential threats in the future.

The local community websites which grew out of Hampton Online have been growing in their sophistication, variety and audience - and are entirely dependent on volunteers. They have become, said Vincent Cable, "not just a valuable resource for local communities, traders, the police, councillors and others to communicate but the beginnings of e-democracy where the Internet connected public, a large and growing group locally, can express their ideas and be heard. But all this is under some threat".

Vincent Cable argued that "by subsidising local councils to provide their own competing, if less satisfactory, website, the government is undermining independent websites. And in Richmond's case, thuggish pressure by the council on the website volunteers, shows that councils like ours don't like to have a new, genuinely independent, media shining a light on their activities (see Private Eye p11 18 Feb - 3 March)".