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New Latrobe City Council Website Now Operational

The new Latrobe City Council website became operational on Monday 21 November for residents and visitors to access a myriad of information on the Latrobe community and on council services.

By Latrobe City Council - 24th November 2005 - Back to News

The address of the new website remains the same as the old, which is: (www.latrobe.vic.gov.au), so that residents and visitors with established links on their own homepages to the old website, or who have the website address stored in their favourites folder, will not be inconvenienced.

In launching the new website at the Morwell Library, Latrobe City’s Chief Executive Officer, Paul Buckley, explained that the new website would be much easier to use, with a new menu structure making it much easier to navigate throughout the site and find the information sought.

"The new website is much faster and has been developed incorporating new ‘.NET’ technology. This also means the website can be supported for many years to come,’ Mr Buckley said.

"The website has also been designed to conform to W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines to at least a Level A, and in many cases to a Level AA. Many people with a disability are precluded from obtaining information from websites that don’t comply with these guidelines, yet those websites that do, provide a whole new world of information which can be accessed using screen readers and peripheral equipment," Mr Buckley explained.

"Our existing website was developed some years ago using what is now outdated technology. The website was simply not meeting the community’s needs due to the site being unstable and was far less user-friendly than we would like. We were determined to remedy the inadequacies of the site and improve the provision of information for our community at the earliest possible time, but we were also determined to ensure that what we delivered was not only a powerful tool for our community, but sustainable," Mr Buckley said.

"As a consequence of a meticulous examination of our own needs, meetings with website designers, and an evaluation of numerous corporate and government websites, Latrobe City entered a partnership with local IT provider Sage Technology to develop a new site.

"Through a rigorous tender process, Sage Technology was chosen as our website provider as they demonstrated a unique, high quality approach to producing a flexible and customisable product. The fact that they are a local provider is also a huge benefit, to ensure that support and future development can be coordinated efficiently," Mr Buckley said.

Sage Technology’s managing director, Lynda Bertoli, said Sage believed the Latrobe City website project was an opportunity to demonstrate the company’s ability to deliver modern, latest technology solutions.

"We worked closely with Latrobe City, more as a partner than a service provider, to ensure their requirements were met and they were happy with the product delivered.

"The project was technically challenging for our team of developers led by Joel Edwards. The website was built around latest Microsoft technologies and Sage’s state-of-the-art Content Management System, providing Latrobe City and all website users with an intuitive, easy to use and very informative system," Ms Bertoli said.

"We believe our community is the long-term winner because we have demonstrated by working together we can produce an excellent product. We have the Information Technology skills here in the Valley, and the public now has a wonderful interface to Latrobe City and our region in general," Ms Bertoli added.

Features of the site include a register where residents can search to see if missing pets or livestock have been impounded.

Residents will also be able to find contact details for local community groups and non profit organisations through the new community directory. This directory will stay as up to date as possible, as notifications are automatically sent to users for update or confirmation of detail, upon given expiry dates

A new-look events calendar will be much more user-friendly and up-to-date, as it will enable community groups and event organisers to submit notification of events online.

All council tenders and job vacancy information will be available from the site, and the website provides an improved forum and council documents section where documents can be located in a speedy fashion.

Latrobe City is encouraging residents and visitors to browse the new website and forward comments through the ‘Contact’ link.


Source: www.gippsland.com

Published by: news@gippsland.com



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