Parish Council website Makeover

Hartpury Parish Council

Website makeover for a parish council in Gloucestershire.

About The Project

Hartpury Parish Council approached us because their existing website had become difficult to manage and no longer met modern standards. The design was dated, editing content was cumbersome for the Parish Clerk, and the site was not WCAG 2.2 AA compliant. It also struggled to function properly on mobile devices, making it difficult for residents to access council information on phones or tablets. A Parish Council Website Makeover was the ideal solution to modernise the site and make it far easier to use for both the council and the community.

A Parish Council Website Makeover Focused on Accessibility

As part of the Parish Council Website Makeover, we completely refreshed the design and structure of the website. The new layout is clean, clear and easy to navigate, ensuring residents can quickly find agendas, minutes, policies and council news. We also incorporated a wide range of accessibility features so the site now aligns with WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility guidelines, helping ensure that all users — including those using assistive technologies — can access important council information.

Easier Updates for the Parish Clerk

A key goal of the Parish Council Website Makeover was to make the website much easier for the Parish Clerk to manage. Council documents are now displayed in a logical, well-organised format that makes uploading and updating files simple and efficient. The result is a modern parish council website that is accessible, mobile-friendly and easy to maintain — helping Hartpury Parish Council communicate more effectively with residents and keep information up to date.

Project Details

View more of our parish council websites

What you need to know

How long does it take to give a parish council website a makeover?

As you already have a logo and the content (words and pictures) to go on your website, it will take approximately two weeks to build. Uploading of existing documents is fairly straightforward process and everything will need to be in PDF format.

How much does a parish council website makeover cost?

Websites are quoted on a basis of how much work needs doing. A basic parish council website makeover would start at £650 (initial setup fee). We know we are not the cheapest but strongly believe we provide a solid product, backed up by excellent customer service (see our reviews).

How do you edit the parish council website once it is built?

We’ll provide full instructions on how to edit the words, latest news posts, events, documents and photos on the parish council website as part of the build costs. For major changes, we can provide a very competitive quote.

Will the parish council website be WCAG 2.2 AA compliant?

The website will be built to conform to best practice industry standards for web design and accessibility. The website will also have an accessibility menu for increasing text size, changing background colour and highlight links.

Does a parish council website need to be responsive?

With over half of all internet browsing and searches done with a mobile phone or tablet, it is vital that a parish council website works on these devices. A properly designed parish council website should do just that and change its appearance depending on the screen size. All of our parish council websites work on all devices.

What SEO do you need for a parish council website?

To get found, your parish council website will most likely need to be on the first page of Google or Bing. This will require your website to have some search engine optimisation carried out on it. All of our parish council websites have the on-page SEO done while being built. Typically, there will be some good quality links to your parish website already, negating the need for any additional work to be done.

Can you organise website hosting and email for the parish council?

As a full service parish council website design company we provide a comprehensive range of hosting solutions for parish council websites. As well as hosting we can also look after email accounts for the parish council.

How do you make a parish council website easy to navigate?

It’s always a great idea to organise the website in such a way that is logical for anyone visiting the parish council website. We like to keep our menu structure simple and easy to use. This also keeps the mobile menu as small as possible. Having more than two layers is generally a bad idea for user experience.

What is a good domain name for a parish council?

The shorter your domain name or web address the better. The full guidance can be found on the gov.uk website.

We would recommend using the durmchapel-pc.gov.uk as opposed to durmchapelparishcouncil.gov.uk purely for brevity.

The domain name will not influence how the website is indexed on Google. We can provide guidance on this as well as the procedure for applying for a .gov.uk domain name.

What information needs to be on a parish council website?

Parish councils must adhere to the guidelines set out in the Transparency Code for Smaller Authorities. Which states the following information should be published: