Back Home (Pendle Borough Council)

Member Name: blackjane

Product:	Pendle Borough Council
Date:	21/04/01 (47 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice Idea!

Disadvantages: Token Gesture?

Pendle Council

[Background: Home, Sweet Home! After several years living in Liverpool I finally 'upped sticks' and went back to my roots. I now reside in a small village called Barrowford, under the jurisdiction of Pendle Council, a mere five miles from my place of birth in the neighbouring borough of Burnley.]

Pendle is an area of East Lancashire covering the towns of Colne, Nelson, Barnoldswick, Barrowford, Brierfield, Earby and Trawden, as well as several other parishes that were previously under the control of Burnley and Skipton Rural District Councils. The council is made up of a total of fifty-one councillors, and although Labour has most seats at present (24), no party has overall control.

Their website (www.pendle.gov.uk) provides a great deal of basic information on a variety of council departments. The easiest way to navigate this information is via the 'A to Z' facility, which covers most aspects of the work the council carries out. Unfortunately any more detailed information, as well as the opportunity to contact the council about any of these services, is only available by using the supplied telephone numbers. Therefore the site has limited real uses other than serving as a directory of services.

The website also has a useful section that details recent press releases (from the last month or so), although no archived information has been made available.

There are a number of other sections, including jobs, tourism and leisure which provide some more detailed information of these activities.

There is an interesting 'Who's Who' section showing the names of key councillors and service area managers. These people can only be contacted by phone and not by e-mail as yet.

The site provides an e-mail link (webmaster@pendle.gov.uk), which enables you to contact the council if you have any comments about their website. Again this is not a forum for general enquiries, but
is limited specifically to aspects of the website only.

Another interesting section details a 'vision' for Pendle, which says much about what the council hope to achieve, although it goes into precious little real detail about how they hope to go about it.

Although the presence of a website is a good idea, it has limited use if the people of the borough are not able to use it fully to interact with their council. Pendle council's site only scratches the surface in terms of what the council does, and feedback and interaction for day to day activities appears to be almost non-existent.

As a council tax payer I feel that I have the right to know more about how my council operates. When my refuse has not been collected (yet again) I would like to have a forum on the website so that I communicate this at any time of the day, and not just during office hours. The site should also be used for providing customers with a whole wealth of information that the council is unable to do easily by other means.

In general I feel that the council's services are adequate. However, the way in which it currently communicates with its 'customers' is rather disappointing. A website would have been a great method to allow better feedback and interaction from its council tax payers. However, it only serves as lipgloss to what is already available at its offices. My general feeling is of disappointment in an opportunity missed, although I hope in time that this side of their operation will develop and they will ultimately be able to redeem themselves.

Pendle council appear to have made it square 3 or 4 on the snakes and ladders board, but there are a many more squares and several more snakes before they will ever be able to make it square 100.

{An original Dooyoo opinion
© Blackjane 2001}

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