Community and town council websites in Powys, £47 a month

In Wales, a parish council is called a community council, and the rules on websites are different from England. The Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 requires community and town councils to have a website and to publish information about the council, including its meeting arrangements. The Welsh Government publishes statutory guidance and access-to-information guidance for community and town councils, which is the place to check exactly what your council needs to publish.

Plenty of Powys councils cover big, sparsely populated areas, with a part-time clerk and meetings in a village hall. The website is often the easiest way for residents to find out when the next meeting is and what was decided at the last one. We take care of it for £47 a month. The clerk emails us the agenda, minutes or notice, and we publish it, usually the same day. Up to 10 changes a month are included, which is enough for most community councils. If you need more in a busy month, ask us.

Bilingual pages

We build sites with Welsh and English pages side by side and a clear switch between them. We don’t translate, so the council supplies the Welsh text or arranges a translator. For what your council is expected to publish in Welsh, check the Welsh Government guidance and ask One Voice Wales. We’d rather you get that answer from them than from your web designer.

You may have heard of Helo Blod, the Welsh Government’s Welsh-language service. It’s worth knowing that Helo Blod can’t translate material that has to be published in Welsh to comply with Welsh language legislation, so don’t plan your council’s Welsh pages around it without checking first.

One Voice Wales and training for clerks

One Voice Wales is the association for community and town councils in Wales, and a good first stop for clerks looking for training and guidance. We’re independent and One Voice Wales doesn’t endorse us, but if your clerk has guidance from them about the website, send it over and we’ll build to it.

Accessibility

Community and town councils are public sector bodies under the 2018 accessibility regulations, so the site should meet WCAG 2.2 AA and the council must publish an accessibility statement. We build to that standard, test the pages before launch and write the statement with you. We can’t guarantee compliance, because the council stays responsible for its own website, but we’ll tell the clerk if a document they send can’t be read by a screen reader, such as a scanned PDF of signed minutes, and suggest how to fix it. Our guide to writing a parish council accessibility statement covers what the statement should say.

Domains

A domain such as yourcommunitycouncil.org.uk is included. If the council has a .gov.uk domain, we’ll connect it. We can’t register .gov.uk domains, because only approved registrars can.

We’re based on the Shropshire and Powys border and work by phone and email with councils across the county, from around Welshpool and Newtown to Llandrindod Wells and Knighton. See our main council websites page for everything included.