Local Government Web Site of 1996

Local Government Web Site of the Year.

Western Isles Council takes the award for Overall Winner.

We all felt this site was interesting and appealing and offered a new insight into the Western Isles. The webmaster there is Gavin Earons, "I'm really pleased. This was just a pilot project, but I didn't want it to be boring".

Style and Design Award

Newcastle City Council is our winner of the Style and Design Award. Their opening front page was appealing and bright. In particular we felt they had used the Internet well by incorporating links to other notable Newcastle sights to present a strong picture of Newcastle overall.

Graham Jordan, the webmaster for the site said, "We've recently had a lot of hits from both Siemens and Philips - both have since announced they will be opening major new computer chip fabrication plants in Newcastle. Plainly the web site had a part to play."

Our two runners up are Liverpool and the Mendips. Sadly, the Mendips site has ground to a halt since its principal developer has left.

Content and Information Award

St. Albans wins the Content and Information Award. The site covered a lot of ground including business to business and consumer information. This site managed to be both useful as well as selling the benefits of St. Albans.

Our runners up are Wansbeck and Birmingham.

Special Mention

We have a special mention for Weymouth which was disqualified from the main awards because we felt it was purely a Tourist Board development rather than a true district wide site. However, it was one of the few sites that had a clear objective, provided a wealth of information and did it effectively and quickly.

Our Short List

Full Report

A full report on Local Government Web Sites is being prepared and will be available shortly.

The Losers

We have to say that this review was quite depressing. Site after site was incomplete, out of date, unusable, broken and just generally bleak.

Local authorities who already have a web presence must urgently review their web site. There are several which would be better if they were not on-line at all.