The communities of Brighton & Hove and the London Borough of Newham will have the chance to discuss issues online, in forums launched this week. Using the new open source e-democracy tool GroupServer, it is hoped more communities across the UK will be encouraged to use the system during 2005.

As part of the government funded UK Local E-democracy National Project, the forums are designed to be a neutral space for local communities and officials to communicate and galvanise change within their localities. Hosted by E-Democracy.org, the forums aim to empower citizens by offering them a public platform to voice concerns.

E-Democracy.Org is a non-profit, non-partisan, citizen based project intending to increase participation in democracy through IT. It began in 1994 as the internet’s first election-oriented website designed to help citizens increase their civic participation. It has adopted new and innovative open source technology developed in New Zealand to host the UK forums. GroupServer technology allows participation via e- mail or the web by utilising a number of emerging social networking techniques that effectively bring communities of people together online.

It is the intention of these forums to build community cohesion within a socially diverse local population, the key to the future of local democracy being ‘any time, anywhere’ participation.