Bournvillevillage.com may be a small website run by volunteers but it’s nice to see it getting some national recognition in a report by Socitm, the membership association for local authority ICT professionals.

The ‘Better Connected’ report is an annual survey of all local authority websites. One of the key messages in this year’s report is the importance of promoting open data and it’s in relation to that that Bournville Village gets some recognition. Our map of local gritting routes is cited as a useful example of a data ‘mash-up’ and the report draws attention to the subsequent debate on the re-use of local government data on my own blog.

In addition to the above our coverage of the Cadbury Takeover is also covered in a section called ‘hyperlocal blogs and how to engage with them’ written by Birmingham blogger and consultant Nick Booth. Nick says in the report: “Kraft’s takeover of Cadbury was big news, a global story, but also a very local one. On the day of the takeover a neighbourhood blog in Birmingham called Bournville Village provided live coverage of the stock announcement and local reaction”