Democracy on the web?

I thought it would be interesting to have a look at the blogs of Chester city councillors. There is an increasing trend towards openness on the internet by our institutions. For example, a number of police chiefs are blogging these days, as are some MPs.

Chester City Council has a fairly good website, as council websites go. A recent innovation has been to set up a special political website where councillors can blog about what they are doing on behalf of ward constituents, and there's also a BBC news feed on recent political news.

Unfortunately, while Chester City Council has 60 elected councillors, only 6 have blogs. And of these, only 2 are actually blogging, in the sense that they are keeping their local residents updated as opposed to posting a "welcome" blog then falling silent. So, just 3.3% of Chester's councillors are blogging - how are they faring?

John Price's blog is pretty impressive - he represents Blacon, an area of Chester that has a difficult reputation, and it's good to see that he is proactive, using his blog to give advance notice of local meetings and to report back on hot issues. Richard Short is also posting fairly regularly. A shame that the others who signed up have not followed through their commitment. But it's an interesting attempt, nonetheless, and if I find any more council blogs from around the county, they will be added.