Digital divide

IT was the advent of the internet that enabled the Royal wedding to become one of the biggest events in television history, with wellwishers watching the pageantry on computers in some of the remotest parts of the world.

Yet, if Royal enthusiasts had sought to do so in North Yorkshire yesterday, they would have endured terminally slow connections because of the intermittent broadband access that prevents rural areas from fulfilling their economic potential.

This drawback is, at least, being recognised by North Yorkshire County Council which wants every building within its boundaries to have access to the next generation of “super-fast” broadband by 2015. Such ambition is noteworthy at a time when too many local authorities are using the Government’s spending cuts as an excuse to do nothing – or to scale back essential services.

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Nevertheless, it is the limitations of funding that are having to see neighbouring hamlets and villages compete against each other for the funding that is immediately available. And, while this exercise is clearly seeing communities pull together to share their computer knowhow, an example of the Big Society in action, the challenge for national and local political leaders is to ensure that there are no further delays so that the digital divide between urban and rural areas is narrowed at the earliest opportunity.