Talk About Local
Empowering communities with simple websites
Hyperlocal websites and public sector information
PSI In Action
Caledonian Club
20 October 2009
William Perrin - william@talkaboutlocal.org
Talk About Local (West Midlands) Ltd
http://talkaboutlocal.org
William Perrin TAL
www.kingscrossenvironment.com
over 700 articles
Four volunteer writers – aged 40-65
Small number of authors
Campaigns, information, wildlife,
events etc
•Cemex campaign – long running anti social
plant operations
•Videos of noise pollution in YouTube –
unarguable prima facie case
•Send links to CEMEX CEO UKMEA and Council
noise officers
•Successful resolution – plant restructured
www.digbeth.org
Digbeth gritty industrial
area of South B’ham
Arts, events, positive
stories
Digbeth is Good
redefined image of
Digbeth on line
Costs - £10/month
Wordpress blog
Stoke-on-Trent
www.pitsnpots.co.uk
Campaigning, challenging style
Reflects local frustration at
political scene
3 writers, 28,000 comments on
local politics
Wordpress site
£20 a month
www.harringayonline.com
Nearly 2,000 members
Green Lanes
Chatty informal feel
Wide range of local issues
£15 month
www.sheffieldforum.co.uk
discussion forum
3.7 million posts
85,000 registered users
Population Sheffield 450,000
www.parwich.org
Four or more writers
Village life – popn. 400
400 views a day
£10 per month
Wordpress.com site
• TAL(WM)Ltd SME using UK
online centre network of trainers
for national reach and leverage
• UK online centres reach out to
engage activists in their
communities
• Community sites in over 150
places across England
• Engage 3,000 people
• Give people confidence and
support to create local sites using
free tools
• Online support network and
website
• Built using West Midlands talent
http://Kingtonblackboard.org
UK online centre – Marches Access
Point
Started August 2009 with TAL
Ruralhttp://kingtonblackboard.org
town life and news
Wordpress site
http://W14london.ning.com
Deprived area of West London
Started August 2009 – with TAL and
local NDC
Local discussion and information
Over 100 members already
Ning.com site – cost £zero
Public Sector Information in action
Street light broken for 163 days
From snagging to failure
Can performance data help hold to
account?
Highway authority
Enfield
Ealing
Tower Hamlets
Harrow
Barnet
Hounslow
Southwark
City
Hammersmith and Fulham
Wandsworth
Hillingdon
Richmond
Waltham Forest
Haringey
Kingston Upon Thames
Barking and Dagenham
Merton
Havering
Kensington and Chelsea
Islington
Croydon
Redbridge
Newham
Sutton
Brent
Hackney
Lambeth
Camden
Bromley
Lewisham
Westminster
Transport for London
Greenwich
Bexley
BV 215b - average time
taken to repair a street
lighting fault, where
response time is under the
control of a DNO
7.74
9.35
12.31
13.40
16.98
17.27
17.43
19.00
20.21
20.76
20.81
21.09
21.93
21.96
22.00
23.34*
23.53
24.95
25.88
26.50
27.06
27.28
27.46
27.89
30.54
32.16
32.84
32.94
35.69
38.77*
39.84*
42.40
70.99
77.45
Took a lifetime to find relevant
information on web
Street light repair – Islington
average 26.5 days
Lever for getting things done
Light gets fixed due to this and
other factors
Superb local information service – easy
to use and comprehensible
Abstract information made useful
Endangered by post codes madness
What does Royal Mail spend £18
million pa on?
Planning - to exercise democratic
rights, need to know:
Existence
Document
Meaning of document
Route for comment
Deadlines
Consultation process
Meeting timetable
Results of meeting…..
Whitehall
Townhall
Blackhall
New front end on over 300 public
service outlets
National service layer beyond
capability of CLG
Radical unified interface for
hundreds of often poor services
Basic PSI critical – boundaries,
post codes, maps, email
addresses
Excellent pooling of feeds
But Council Information
retrieved often hard to
understand for machines and
people– eg officers powerpoint
and meeting minutes
@countculture
RSS and other feeds
of local information
Works with local
Lichfield blog
Don’t need to be a big
unitary to do this
BCC DIY
Functional rebuild by volunteers of
£2.8m Birmingham City Council site
For a while you could even PAY your
council tax through the site
£38,000 (estimate)
Arguably most radical grass roots web
project in this space right now
Public bodies need to
engage with local sites and offer
them your PSI (as Bham are
doing here)
Find out what they are talking
about and see what you have to
help them
Buy pizza, beer etc – better
investment than cost of one day's
consultant form an SI
If your organisation wants to create local websites
for your community(ies) or discuss how you can
unlock your local information contact us at talk
about local.
William Perrin - william@talkaboutlocal.org
Talk About Local (West Midlands) Ltd
http://talkaboutlocal.org
William Perrin TAL