RESIDENTS are getting wired to make a new wey forward for Weymouth and Portland.

People living in the borough are encouraged to sign up to a new scheme, believed to be the first of its kind in the country- the 'Weyforward Wire.'

As reported in the Echo, Wey Forward is a web portal set up earlier this year to share ideas, vision and 'get the ball rolling' on exciting projects.

Now organisers want residents to sign up online and gather information from offline contacts and then complete short online surveys with the feedback about local community projects, not-for-profit groups and regeneration.

Founder Jason West said: “To make sure that Weymouth and Portland's community gets a fair say in the future of the town we think that the online and offline worlds need to be bridged. The divide is increasingly generational.

“Our research confirmed our intuition and told us that the strongest offline network any of us has is our family and extended family.

“These are people we talk to all of the time watching television, having a meal or just hanging out with. Our families are also where the youngest members talk to the oldest and share life experiences.

“People who are digitally active can sign up to the #Weyforward Wire on our website. However, they are the only person who needs to be able to use the technology.

“The general idea is that we will push important questions out to the network, via our online connections who will then ask their offline network face-to-face, collate the answers they give and send them back to us digitally.

“We hope to receive accurate verifiable answers fairly quickly because people should want to know what everyone is really thinking. In this way we hope to be able to help the borough to tell the council, developers, and businesses exactly what it thinks about specific things.”

As reported in the Echo, an article in the Observer earlier this year described Weymouth as a 'graveyard of ambition' earlier this year.

At the time it received a huge backlash from residents, who got behind the Weyforward initiative to make something positive from the publicity.

Weyforward founder Baron Miles said: “The response to the article demonstrates one of the great things about Weymouth and Portland: the pride we have in our borough.

“We know there are some things that need to be sorted out, but the community spirit is there to do so.

“I believe we can tackle the issues by bringing together education, business, community groups, the officers and politicians of the council, artists and the wider population. We can make this place a place of opportunity and prosperity.”

For more information or to sign up, visit weyforward.net