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The West Somerset Business Network Fair, which took place on 28 February 2007 at the Queen's Hall, Minehead, West Somerset, was a resounding success.

The emphasis on local businesses showing their products and services was a great improvement on previous years where government support services and government organizations took pride of place. Hopefully, in future years, the West Somerset Business Fair will grow and go from strength to strength.

In conversation with Sandra Wilson, who runs the business network in this small West Country rural area, I learnt of changes that had been made during the previous year. The emphasis has been moved away from regular meetings because there are so many other organizations providing these. Instead, the West Somerset Business Network will concentrate on creating several major events a year such as the West Somerset Business Fair.

For me, as an online author, writing as Rob Hopcott, and needing little more than a laptop and a creative idea, the products and services at the Fair were not a great deal of interest but it was a great experience meeting up with local business people and coming up to date with local gossip.

Much of the image that is portrayed by the governmental organizations locally is very much less than dynamic. We hear of farmers who are not allowed to plant biofuel crops because it will not be in keeping with the traditional activities of the area. We see large national retail shopping chains encouraged locally in preference to small businesses. We see car parks needed by local businesses sold off. Writing to local councilors and the MP is startling in its lack of any response and there is a constant stream of letters in the local press critical of the directions chosen by the local Conservative politicians whose party has been in power for many years.

So it was immensely refreshing to talk to local business people at the West Somerset Business Fair who were bubbling with ideas about ways to make West Somerset a better place to live in and do business. These people were not just moaning they were coming up with genuine ideas which would make a practical difference.

One particular theme was mentioned above all the others and that was the importance of focusing on building a strong and well integrated community and moving away from an obsession with capital projects. The feeling was that capital projects were very easy for bureaucrats to understand but the real thing that makes business better in the local area is building links between people and creating events where they could relate to each other and informally network with the community who were their market.

Few people I spoke to could see any point in spending millions of pounds on new Council Offices. Many of them had spoken out over the months of this local controversy. And many believed that the West Somerset District Council had not listened in any way to what they said. The highly restrictive local consultation systems were criticized too for their lack of an opinion audit trail that would demonstrate impartially a point of view had been fairly taken into account.

Instead, creating places where the public could gather and interact locally and socially was seen as being much more important and a better contributer to the local economy.

The recently instituted (long-awaited) Farmers Market in Minehead is an example of this. Speaking personally, whenever I go to a farmer's market, I always end up talking to somebody. This is a good thing. It promotes community beyond the mere selling of some local organic produce.

Why not also have a free artist's market, a local speaker's corner And a place outside where musicians can meet And play music for anybody who wants to listen? No doubt the local bureaucrats can think of many reasons why this should not happen. Perhaps some of these are valid, after all we live in a very repressive society in the UK these days And Local Government must implement these laws. However, we must try hard to find (legal) ways around the mounting repressive legislation that has been generated by Members of Parliament who love passing laws against things more than creating opportunity for positive progress. We must believe that making progress to grow our communities has been made more difficult, not impossible.

Watchet Carnival is a good example of the sort of community activity that's done more to regenerate the area than the millions of pounds being spent on new council officers. I spoke to Loretta Whetlor and was very much encouraged by her enthusiasm for the next Watchet Carnival which sounds as if it will be the best one ever.

Penny Ward And Colin Balkham from Project Computers are wonderful examples of what 'can do' local people can achieve. They have taken matters into their own hands And organized their isolated local rural community in Luxborough so they and their neighbors can receive broadband by wireless. I understand that they have now extended their broadband and wireless expertise into helping boating And yachting people use broadband facilities in the Dartmouth area (Dart Harbor)

Again and again, local business people said to me that the focus of development in Exmoor And West Somerset should be on IT And Internet based businesses. Certainly tourism has its place but there are opportunities, locally, for building a a thriving knowledge based industry with channels of communication, markets and wealth from online Internet based activities. This is our future And we are currently well behind others in seizing these opportunities.

If we were spending millions of pounds on ensuring that West Somerset was a center of international Internet communications and links, we would be doing more for West Somerset than putting millions of pounds into Local Government buildings or any other bricks and mortar projects. I find it completely incomprehensible that the local ruling party Conservatives are pressing ahead with these new offices despite their knowledge that local government is being completely reorganized and centralized into unitary authorities with a potentially very much different and smaller bureaucratic office requirement. The May elections could see the removal of this local political party from power and it is unlikely that the incoming Councillors will continue with this much criticized project.

The West Somerset Business Fair was a great success but, for the future success of businesses in West Somerset, we need ordinary business people's common sense opinions to be heard louder.

The image of West Somerset needs to be of a thriving local Internet and knowledge based community, reaching out to the rest of the world and forming a center of communications with the rest of the world.

West Somerset and Exmoor is a wonderful place to live and rear a family. We need to make it a wonderful place to do business and we need local politicians in place that can make it so.

Bye for now

Rob

(Rob Hopcott - online business author)