OK Adrian, have done this and the results are as follows:

Download: 1572kb/s
Upload: 353kb/s
Latency: 103ms
Server: Derby
Distance: 50mi

Thanks
James

well you have not got a great upload speed nor have you got a very good ping wich will slow down the response time of the server but it would be fine if it was just a website or two on the server but this does depend how much trafic your website's gets each mouth also if your connection has a limit on your broadband you will probley be going over it a lot. but as long as you understand that then you should be fine you would be able to do it on that connection. (i will help you as much as i can that you need help with of course)

what might be better is either buy your own server and get some rack space of a webhosting company or rent a dedicated server but ask that you can control it then you would be able to remote into the server wich would probley be better for you.

Thanks for your reply and thanks for all your help Adrian!!

About that last point - do you know of any good companies which offer me the chance of remotely connecting and doing it that way. As you say my connection is ok but not great especially for a website with a fair amount of traffic.

Thanks again!
James

here are two places one is the company i work for and im prety sure you can get route access and the other it ses they can give you route access.

Think? hosting | Dedicated Hosting
Dedicated server hosting from 123-reg

i can try and find more if you need these are just one's i now off also
you might wan't to ask henigs where this website is i now he runs on dedicated but i don't now if they give you root access i hope this helps you.

personaly i think you have made the right choice about not trying to host it your self.