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Project summary
 The
Carpenters Estate WuC is the smallest
of the seven projects. It covers a
single housing estate containing that
includes three high rise blocks (432
dwellings) and about 150 other 'low
rise' dwellings. Most of the housing
is social housing although there have
been some sales of mainly low rise
dwellings. The Carpenters Estate is
located in one of the most deprived
areas in the country as ranked by
the Index of Deprivation (lowest 3%).
A distinctive feature of the estate
is that it is very ethnically diverse.
The estate is managed by a Tenant
Management Organisation (TMO) and
the local community centre in which
the TMO is located also houses a number
of other community facilities including
a learndirect
learning centre. The estate also has
its own primary school which acts
as a further focus for learning for
the community.
Newham.net played a key leadership role in assembling
the bid for WuC funding by bringing
together a coalition of interests
and organisations as well as helping
to design the technical proposals
for the WuC in the area. A variety
of other organisations also played
a part in the bid for WuC funds. The
TMO on the Carpenters estate played
an important role in mobilising and
representing community support, but
faced some challenges in the formative
stages of the project when much of
the discussion centred on the technology
infrastructure.
The project's partners include Newham
Council (Newham ICT, Library Services,
Education Department), the Carpenters
Road Tenant Management Organisation
(TMO), Newham College of Further Education,
University of East London, Newham.net
and Mase (now NEOS Networks).
The various interests involved are
represented on a Steering Group for
the Carpenters WuC which meets monthly.
Newham Council provides several members
of the steering group, all drawn from
senior positions in the organisation.
The chair of the steering group is
a senior local authority officer with
a responsibility in the council for
IT. The Education Department of the
council is also represented and became
involved in particular through its
work on IT in local schools, and later,
this was reinforced by involvement
with the e-Learning Foundation project
at the Primary School on the Carpenters
estate.
 The
project is distinguished by the innovative
use of the set-top box platform for
access to the internet for a range
of government services online and
a bespoke community 'video on demand'
service. The project has also secured
a deal with Microsoft allowing it
to run the Windows XP platform and
Microsoft Office suite over the set
top box. More recently, the Media Trust
has been heavily involved in the development
of a 'community participation in ICT'
programme - "Meet the Neighbours".
However, the development of this
innovative technology and the roll-out
of the telecommunications infrastructure
has contributed to major slippage
in the implementation of the project.
By March 2003 260 set-top boxes had
been delivered into local households.
In terms of longer-term sustainability,
Newham Council is seeking to develop
the project as a model that can be
deployed on other Council Estates.
Newham Council is strongly committed
to the development of e-government
and is currently establishing a series
of web-based services that could include
the Newham WuC project with Carpenters
residents using the technology, for
example, to pay bills online.
The project is pursuing a 'home-school
links' aspect as a basis for developing
best practice, which can be shared
across the borough. The local education
authority is strongly committed to
the use of IT in local schools and
views it as a major means of helping
to raise standards.
Further funding avenues are being
explored with consultancy support from DfES. For example, a new
community enterprise, Home to Home
Ltd, is being established to manage
the local aspects of the service and
revenue opportunities include advertising,
video production, provision of high
quality media training, renting of
one of the estates two video edit
suites and the lease of media equipment.
Newham.net itself also runs the local network and
there is an opportunity to provide
some chargeable services such as 'video
on demand', higher speed internet
access and online video gaming. The
potential for developing these further
will come with the availability of
Internet and intranet access in local
homes. The local authority is also
considering funding an estate community
worker and worker for the Carpenters
Connect service through the use of
money from the Housing Department.
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