A COMMUNITY centre hoping to get hooked up to the Internet is having a four-day visit from The Northern Echo's CommuniGate Bus.

Bowburn Community Centre has a suite of computers, used by several groups, and computers in its office but none are linked to the worldwide web.

However, it is one of scores of organisations across the region that has a website hosted on CommuniGate.

A specially-equipped bus pulled up at the centre yesterday to show people how they can set up their own site on CommuniGate.

Bowburn Community Association secretary Bill Temporal said having Internet access and e-mail would save the association money because it could do things such as invoice hall users and send out minutes of meetings by e-mail.

At present, association volunteers have to do this from home if they have a computer with access.

He welcomed the visit of the CommuniGate Bus, which is sponsored by Barclays Bank and supported by Northumbria University, with mobile connections supplied by Orange, as a way of getting more people from the village to use the centre.

Mr Temporal said: "It is a start. It is something we have gone out of our way to do to bring people into the centre.

"There is broadband in the village but we can't get the funding to get it.''

He said the centre was well-used but many came from outside Bowburn and he was hoping to attract more people to use the centre.

The bus is in the car park of the community centre, in Durham Road, today, tomorrow, and on Thursday, all between 2pm and 4pm.

Among the people taking advantage of the free sessions was Durham City councillor Mike Syer, who was learning how to design a website for Bowburn Youth Club.