A website stock-take in 2017 showed the New Plymouth District Council it had:
This added complexity for the council staff as new feature development was inefficient and costly, so a major website consolidation process was started.
The first step was decide the hosting environment and content management system that all websites would be migrated to, the criteria included:
Hosting Platform
Web Content Management System
Microsoft Azure and Umbraco
Microsoft Azure and the Umbraco Content Management System were chosen for their interoperability, flexibility, ease-of-use and longevity. A decision which has already saved hundreds of thousands of dollars on CMS licensing, hosting and development costs.
Over the last four years the majority of websites have been upgraded to Umbraco including the most complex, the NPDC corporate website which was redeveloped in 2021.
The visual design brief for the new website was to:
To achieve this the Effect design team collaborated with several local artists and carvers to delve into the history of the district and surrounding land, as well as the carvings and art work in the council buildings.
These stories were then translated into digital design elements that could be applied to the navigation and components within the website.
Working closely with a wide range of the council team, web components were carefully crafted to allowing the council .
The result is a purpose-built local government website that:
A council website is never finished, there is always strategic planning, LTP's, annual plans, rules and regulations that require clear and concise communication with the public.
The NPDC website build includes several exciting features to share feedback from the public and ensure information is up to date and relevant.