Baying for broadband

Interesting piece by Martin Wainwright in the Guardian on the revival of the Yorkshire coastal village of Robin Hood's Bay (or, rather, its avoidance of the tourism trap). The credit is given to broadband internet allowing home working, although it's rather annoying to see the village's renewed economic vitality defined primarily in its ability to attract downsizing professionals from Leeds and London.

In Bay, they set up a co-operative provider to bring broadband to the village. Here in Halifax, we get the BT ADSL service (a perfectly satisfactory service so far, and just upgraded to 2Mbps), but down in the valley, the good folk of Hebden Bridge also set up a pioneering broadband co-operative, Calder Connect Cooperative. That's helping support the thriving freelance community there, though again things seem largely driven by the offcumdens.