Attended the launch of the Mersey Broadband Project yesterday at the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce. The project is designed to increase takeup of broadband services across Merseyside & Halton by demos and other activities.

From what I can see the Merseyside area is fast becoming the digital centre of the Northwest. Add the Mersey Broadband Project to Liverpool Digital [on the old Marconi site], which I'm told is the biggest government funded ecommerce project in Europe, and lots of activity is forming out of the mist. Senior BT figures also claim that the Northwest, outside of London, is the most enabled region as far as broadband goes.

So connectivity is a dead issue as everyone can get broadband. So now its all about broadband usage and content.

If these projects can be joined up, in the true spirit of broadband and wide area networks, then the resulting digital machine will be well placed to fit well with the 2008 City of Culture. Creative industry content requires bandwidth and connectivity and all the pieces are there. Lets hope they can be connected and made to work - after all, that's the hard bit.

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