AN INCREASING number of cafes are banning computers to encourage good old-fashioned conversation – and drive business.

Tech-loving Brighton and Hove is full of both students and freelancers who favour working in cafes to libraries or  setting up a workspace at home, but a number of venues are resisting demand to accommodate them.

Dough Lover in Trafalgar Street is the first café in the city to fully ban laptops and tablets - and does not offer free wi-fi either.

But the owner, Ronke Arogundade, insists it's not personal.

She said: “We have very few adult spaces where people can sit and have a coffee and a conversation with a friend and everyone else in the room is doing the same thing.

“There are loads of places people can go into freely with their laptops, but I wanted to build something different.

"I want to encourage people to converse with one another, and take time to enjoy their surroundings."

Ms Arogundade, who previously ran a corporate catering company in the capital, saw the effect of laptop use in the site's predecessor Redwood le Café, which suffered because people working there with their laptops would drive away other customers.

She said: “I remember visiting Redwood with a friend – it was my favourite café – and people would tut because they were trying to work.

“But they would sit there and buy only one coffee for three hours of work, and use up all of the glasses for drinking water.

“In the end, you’re paying for them to be there and other potential customers are leaving because they can’t find a table.”

In contrast, Dough Lover provides a space for people to dine in peace without the distraction of a tapping keyboard.

The idea is catching on across the city, with both long-serving Brighton institution Marwoods in Ship Street and sister café Presuming Ed in London Road implementing laptop-free zones.

Café Coho, also in Ship Street, has also brought in a full computer ban across the weekend, while one Small Batch café – next to Jubilee Library – has never supplied wi-fi.

Computer-friendly cafes are still in the majority in Brighton however, with many diners used to sitting among laptop-users at Trading Post Coffee Roasters in Ship Street and a number of other independents which freely offer wi-fi to their customers.

But some, such as Trafalgar Street's Dough Lover, just want to offer something beyond the norm.