Wokingham

Now with better access to all the information about Wokingham council services - from when your bins are collected to information on choosing a school and from planning applications to pest control - Wokingham District Council’s website at www.wokingham.gov.uk has been redesigned and restructured with less jargon and clearer page design. Residents are being asked to tell us what they think online for a chance to win £50 in high street vouchers.

The new look Wokingham website, delivered on time after a period of involved consultation with staff and stakeholder groups, has been available online since October 16. Since this date the council’s web team have been making sure that everything is running smoothly and solving any initial queries from users. Now the council is asking for users’ views on the new changes and their ideas for future developments, so that the site can continue to improve.

Because Wokingham District Council would like the website to evolve with users’ needs, anyone who visits the site in the next month, leaving a comment on how the website can be improved, stands a chance of winning high street vouchers. Visitors to the site simply need to click on the slogan ‘Tell Us What You Think’ and then submit their details and any comments they might like to make on the improved site to be entered into the prize draw. Visitors to the website can submit their entry to the prize draw until November 14. The winner will be drawn on November 15.

Chief executive Doug Patterson said: “We know that many of our residents and businesses are highly IT literate and the Wokingham district has one of the highest rates of internet access in the country. Therefore it is important to us to have a website that makes more of our key information and services accessible online. This new look website has been designed in consultation with users and aims to make the whole process of finding out about the council online much easier.”

As well as providing information, the website is interactive and allows Wokingham residents to do many things instantly, online, which would otherwise require a phone call, letter or even a visit to the council offices. Anyone who hasn’t got access to the internet at home can use the computers in the district’s libraries for free access to the site.

Residents can go online to:

* Pay council tax

* Submit comments on planning applications

* Renew library books

* Join in ‘Online Live’ discussions with councillors

* Apply for job vacancies within Wokingham District Council

* Find clubs and voluntary organisations, with over 300 links to local web sites

* Read council agendas and minutes

* View photos of animals reported missing to the district’s animal warden

* Find out about school term dates and childcare

* Report abandoned vehicles, fly tipping, graffiti, pot holes and faulty street lights

* See information on waste and recycling collections

* Find a course or activity

* Check the air quality and risk of flooding in their area

* Report benefit fraud, illegal signs or a noise nuisance

* Pay parking fines

* View maps of the district with information on services, and facts and figures

* Check disabled access to public buildings

There is also a brand new postcode search facility where Wokingham residents can look up their property for links to useful information about property prices, council tax, waste collections, nearby doctors and other details of their immediate area.

The council’s ‘Community Network’ of mini-sites for community organisations who do not have the technology to create their own websites is even easier to access. Anyone interested in this aspect of the website should contact website manager Nicholas Spencer on (0118) 974 6109.

Doug said: “I’m pleased with the easier access to services that our residents now have. A website is not static, however, and we will continue to consider feedback and comments on the new site and develop it in line with growing technologies and new requirements. I hope that everyone will visit the site to give their feedback and try their luck at winning the vouchers.”

The Wokingham council’s web team will be holding a ‘surgery’ for people with questions about how to use the website, in the reception area at the Civic Offices, Shute End on November 9 from 10am until 4pm. Residents are invited to come along and find out more.

Wokingham District Council