Local web designer Graham C0wley proudly took the Best Local Area Website award for his 'Broughton's Rough Guide' website in this year’s Hantsweb Awards held at Intech in Winchester.

The winning design for the parish of Broughton in Hampshire only went live in February and has since attracted a lot of interest from residents and even those as far afield as Australia.

In making the award, the judges commented on the ease of navigation, the very up to date news content and obvious relevance to users. They also liked the village notice board feel of the site which Graham designed with that very feature in mind.

“I wanted to build something that looked different and fitted in well with our community and the ‘rough guide’ idea just seemed right”, said Graham. He added that, “Building a website is just the beginning. Unless you keep it up to date, fresh and engaging you will quickly lose your audience”.

Borough Councillor Peter Boulton who was also at the award ceremony said, “I would like to congratulate Graham for successfully competing against several hundred entries to win this prestigious Award for the best local area website. He has worked very hard over a number of years to reach this standard of excellence and entirely at his own cost.

“The HantsWeb competition is very highly thought of, and attracts serious contenders, a number of which have received nationwide acclaim. The entry for Broughton entirely deserves the Award due to its colourful and comfortable accessibility. First impressions of website as are so important, and the notice board style is attractive, friendly and informative.

“Web sites deliver bottom-up and top down information, and with more affordable computing, many households are now accessing the information they require from web-sites. In Broughton, local community information is now available to all, including the elderly and housebound – many of whom are keen surfers, and as more people contribute as well as access information, I am sure the site will become even more popular in the future”.

Graham is a great believer in the power of the internet for bringing communities together. “As a conduit for communicating with residents quickly and directly you can’t beat the internet. Love it or hate it, it’s the future and the more we can embrace it the more we will feel in touch with people’s needs and opinions” he explained.

Graham added that the website is just one of three communication initiatives he’s keen to progress in Broughton. He is already committed to introduce ‘real’ notice boards around the main village and hopes too that the parish council will see fit to publish a quarterly newsletter to parishioners to keep them up to date with developments in and around the parish.