Local authorities will benefit from a new device designed to raise awareness of the risks and effects of flooding around the UK. FloodRanger, a flood simulator, has been launched by the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser Sir David King. It puts ‘players’ in control of a fictional area of Britain’s coastline over a 100-year period.It is expected to become a useful tool for local councils, the Environment Agency and other government departments as well as being used in universities to educate and inform all those involved with flood planning and management. The simulator is designed so that those using it have to defend cities, towns and the countryside in a virtual terrain while still maintaining levels of housing and jobs for a growing population.

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The National Health Service is to be the first major user of significant broadband capacity in the public sector. It follows the announcement that BT has been awarded a 530 million pound contract to provide and manage a broadband network to link all health service organisations in England.The New National Network, also known as N3, will provide a platform on which to run new systems being delivered by the national programme for IT. It will cover all 18,000 NHS locations and sites rather than the 10,000, covered under the current NHSnet contract.

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By Patrick Abrahams Much is being done by people in power to relate to local communities, but many communities currently feel disaffected by central government and its local representatives. The author looks at the role of the 12,000 parish and town councils in the UK as a conduit for local opinion and feedback. He examines the barriers to them establishing websites and calls for local portals that people can use without knowing who is responsible for what