By Maria Sourbati Lack of technology is unlikely to impede progress towards putting public services on line by 2005, but the goal will be undermined by the people dimension. The author looked at Internet access from the view of older people, one group who are likely to find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide. She outlines the challenges of bridging the divide.

Nominations have opened to find people who are making a significant difference to their communities. The Deputy Prime Minister’s Award for Sustainable Communities is designed to recognise projects and initiatives that contribute to making towns, cities and communities better places in which to live and work. It aims to showcase success and highlight aspects of good practice.Launching this year’s awards, John Mr Prescott said they underlined his Department’s commitment to delivering sustainable communities and to identifying best practice examples that other people could learn from. The criteria this year have been revised to bring them in line with the seven themes identified in the Egan Review.

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Councillors and planners in the north of England will be told tonight not to sacrifice the landscape in their efforts to tackle climate change. The uncompromising message will come from the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England at a public meeting it has organised at Durham County Hall.The event has been organised under the title “Wind Farms – At What Cost?” and is designed to raise public attention to the threat of wind turbines. There are currently three applications being considered for wind turbines in County Durham but the CPRE says it is aware of a further seven that will be processed, involving a total of 40 additional wind turbines in the area. CPRE has objected during the initial public consultation and is pressing for a full Environmental Impact Assessment of these schemes to be undertaken so their full effects can be considered. The campaign says the Government predicts that between two and four thousand additional wind turbines will be needed in the UK – or offshore – to meet its target of having ten per cent of electricity from renewable energy by 2010.Paul Hamblin, CPRE’s Head of Natural Resources, said climate change represented a major threat to the character and quality of the countryside and this threat had to be tackled. “But you are no less of an environmentalist for fighting to protect landscapes valued by local people, or the visual pollution caused by a badly sited renewables development,” he added.CPRE supports the move away from fossil fuel generation which is contributing to climate change, but says this should not be achieved at the expense of the countryside. It believes the most effective way to tackle climate change will be to challenge the spiralling increase in energy consumption caused by our lifestyles. This would require a step change in levels of energy efficiency, improved transport policies and better planning and design of new development. All this, the CPRE says, would reduce emissions leading to climate change, without damaging the countryside.

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