Tuesday, December 28 1999

World News / UK

INTERNET: IT wizards wire locals to web
By Sheila Jones

A housing estate in one of Manchester's most depressed inner-city districts has wired itself up to help prepare residents for the digital age.

The Bentley House community in Hulme, known locally as the Redbricks estate, has created its own neighbourhood network and a web site on the internet. The Redbricks local area network, set up by a handful of digitally minded residents, gives the community of 260 council flats access to electronic shopping, neighbourhood notice boards, global trading networks and electronic training online.

Residents can stroll through the north side of their estate in a digitally produced map on the Redbricks web site. A Crisis Response page allows subscribers to alert the community to any problems on the estate.

The project was created by Nigel Stewart, an internet technician, and handful of fellow locals. "We think it is the first network of its kind, funded entirely within the neighbourhood," he says. "We have tried to make it as easy as possible because people here don't necessarily know how computers and the internet work."

In a cramped back room in one of the Redbricks flats, the walls are stacked high with old personal computers being revamped for use by the residents. Mr Stewart, and Cae Gests, an unemployed neighbour helping to run the scheme, buy recycled computers at about £50 a time from the RecycleIT charity, a national project for the recycling of IT equipment.

So far, about 60 people have signed up to the project, which was launched a year ago. Mr Stewart and other residents got together £6,000 between them to kick-start the project with IT equipment and a telecoms line leased from British Telecommunications.

Subscribers pay £12 a month for unlimited access to the internet and web site facilities, including community and council information. They can use either a secondhand PC wired to the local network in their own home or one of the PCs in the two flats where the project is based.

Residents learn how the internet works as they use the system, says Mr Stewart, and users exchange information on the web site notice boards.

Mr Gests, who is hoping to secure support to expand the scheme from the European Union's urban development fund, has rigged up a user-friendly system in his flat on the estate. He pulls a beer pump on the wall to switch on the computer. "All it does is link to the on-off switch. But it makes it a bit of fun."

The residents hope to wire up the whole estate although the project has recently run into a wrangle with the council, which says it is concerned about possible health and safety implications of wiring up the neighbourhood.

"It seems like a terrifically entrepreneurial scheme based in the community but we need to make sure everything is done properly on council property," said a council officer.