Bramhope and Carlton Parish Council

 
“We have had great value for money. Elsewhere we would have had  
to pay hundreds of pounds for the tremendous support we received.
For me, it was a no-brainer”

The Council is responsible for village maintenance, property management, producing the newsletter and other forms of communication, representing the village on local issues, commenting on local planning applications and liaison with other organisations.

ICT Issue

There was a feeling that they were not using the website as effectively as possible.

ICT Developments

The organisation joined the “Take Control with ICT” programme largely funded by Capacitybuilders’ Improving Reach scheme.

Through this programme, Kate Fraser, the Clerk to the Council, attended an ICT Strategy Planning Day and a Website in a Day workshop. This was followed up by an on-site visit by one of the ICT consultants.

As a result of this training, the council is now developing a new website using Wordpress.com. Kate has demoed Wordpress to a small sub-committee of council members and they are currently identifying the structure of what the site should contain. Kate is particularly impressed with the content management approach and how easy it is to use. It has great web statistics, good user control and the polls will be very useful to find out the views of residents. Best of all, it’s FREE.

Kate says, “When you said ‘website in a day’, I thought you were over-egging the pudding but you weren’t at all. It may not be the finished article because you have to involve other people but essentially, that’s what you get!.

“We have had great value for money. Elsewhere we would have had to pay hundreds of pounds for the tremendous support we received. For me, it was a no-brainer”

Next Steps

To get members of the Parish Council actively involved in submitting pieces for the website.