A SCHEME to introduce the Internet to some of the most remote areas of the region is being piloted in a North Yorkshire village.

The move follows an announcement by Tony Blair a few weeks ago in his Sedgefield constituency, when the Prime Minister hinted that he would like to see an Internet Centre in every community in two years' time.

That news has won support in the North York Moors National Park where the future of some of the more rural communities could soon be dependent on the technological revolution for survival.

An ideal site for a cyber cafe has been identified in Castleton, between Guisborough and Whitby, as part of a farm and rural community scheme for the National Parks Association.

Frazer Hugill, from the farm and rural community scheme in the North York Moors National Park, said the scheme worked by asking rural communities what they wanted and then developing it in the national arena. Castleton was chosen as a good location to pilot the scheme.

Peter Woods, from the North York Moors Association, said he thought it was vital because not everyone could afford to buy and run a personal computer.

He said that in India, virtually every small community had access to the Internet, so that farmers could get information and advice, people could send and receive messages, and healthcare advice was available to all.

He said: "They have seen the value of having the ability to pass information out to villages. They just sit down and they get information. Here in rural England, apart from a few private enterprises, nothing of that kind exists."

But he believed the benefits stretched beyond helping local people.

"Quite apart from all the local communication possibilities, tourists who had left their own computers at home would be drawn to the centres and would inevitably patronise other businesses in the village too.

"It will being extra business to the rural community."

The scheme is expected to be developed soon