During the setting up of London Fields Solutions the subject of Information Technology (IT) arose in one of a number of workshops held to discuss housing management. LFS members were informed of how social landlords used IT. The discussion generated ideas on how LFS could use IT in an innovative way that would benefit the both the landlord and the members.

Out of these discussions the idea of an LFS community network was born. The ambition was to connect every house within the scheme to a central intranet server and provide easy access to the internet. Tenants would be able to access a range of services and information from the intranet such as notices, agendas and minutes for meetings, rent accounts, maintenance reporting, message board, contact lists, and general information about LFS.

The Community Network would have 4 main aims:

• To increase resident involvement/democracy by providing easy access to information, communication, discussion and voting tools
• To improve tenants IT skills and confidence through training, support and mentoring of their own I.T projects
• To reduce housing management cost through the use of IT.
• To link LFS with other interested communities and the world at large through fast, economic and convenient access to the Internet.

A group of LFS members took on the ideas, and formed the Digcoop initiative. In November 2001, the first connection was made between two houses, and now, in April 2005, the network covers the whole housing association.