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Council scraps virtual town hall

Tameside Council has abandoned a virtual council office that it had created online, after admitting that it couldn’t justify the £36,000 costs.

The council ‘rented’ an island on Second Life – a virtual world where people and businesses lead an online existence – in order to encourage young people and people with mobility problems to access the council’s services.

But having paid £36,000 for the project, including a payment of £10,000 to Second Life for the ‘land’, council chiefs have admitted that the cost could not be justified, after the ‘Tameside Second Life Service’ for just fourteen months.

A spokesperson told FM World that Second Life was a site that had potentially provided a new way of engaging with service users.

‘It's important that the council is aware and takes advantage of new technologies such as Twitter, YouTube, and other methods of communication to provide a varied means to citizens of accessing information and interacting with us,’ he said.

The council could not confirm how many people had accessed the service in the year that it was online.

‘Whilst the service has not been continued it has allowed us to consider new ways of doing business that we may well find we utilise further in the future as the technology matures and becomes more mainstream.’

John Bell, leader of Tameside Council's opposition called the project ‘absolutely barmy. They must be out of their heads. How many pavements would you be able to mend for £36,000’?

This article was also featured on http://www.fm-world.com