Website Proposal for Winkfield Parish Council

A modern, accessible council website designed to make life easier for residents, councillors and the council team

Thank you for inviting Parish Web & Host to provide a proposal for the redevelopment and ongoing hosting of the Winkfield Parish Council website.

Having reviewed the existing website, we can see that Winkfield Parish Council has considerably more content than many parish councils, including a substantial archive of agendas, minutes, financial information, policies, planning information, community facilities, events and public information.

Our proposal is therefore not simply to give the existing website a new appearance.

We propose creating a modern, easier-to-manage council website, reorganising the existing content into a clearer structure and providing the Council with specialist tools designed specifically for Parish and Town Councils.

The result will be a website that is easier for residents to navigate, easier for council staff to maintain and better equipped for the Council’s future requirements.

Accessibility – WCAG 2.2 Level AA

Accessibility is considered throughout the design and development process rather than treated as an additional service after the website has been completed.

The new website would include consideration of:

Colour contrast
Text sizing
Heading hierarchy
Keyboard navigation
Visible keyboard focus
Alternative text for meaningful images
Responsive mobile layouts
Accessible navigation
Appropriate link descriptions
Form accessibility
Accessible document presentation

We also provide guidance and training to help council staff maintain accessibility when adding new information.

Historic PDF documents and externally supplied documents can present separate accessibility issues. We would not claim that rebuilding the website automatically makes every historic PDF accessible, but we can help the Council establish a much better process for publishing accessible information going forward.

An appropriate Accessibility Statement would be provided for the new website.

What We Propose

The new Winkfield Parish Council website would be professionally redesigned around three priorities:

Easy for residents

Visitors should be able to quickly find:

Agendas and minutes
Meeting dates
Councillors and contact information
Financial and transparency information
Policies
Planning information
News and consultations
Community facilities
Events
Parish information

Easy for council staff

Routine tasks such as publishing an agenda, uploading minutes or updating a policy should not require building pages, manually creating links or searching through the WordPress Media Library.

We provide straightforward administration tools so everyday website management can be carried out by council staff without needing technical knowledge.

Accessible and compliant

The website would be designed around WCAG 2.2 Level AA accessibility requirements, with appropriate heading structures, keyboard accessibility, colour contrast, responsive layouts and other accessibility considerations built into the design.

A Better Structure for Winkfield PC

The current website contains a large amount of valuable information, but over time this has naturally resulted in a deep navigation structure with documents and information spread across numerous sections.

As part of the redevelopment we would work with you to reorganise this information.

A possible top-level structure could be:

Home

Your Council
Councillors, staff, committees, vacancies, governance and council information.

Meetings & Documents
Agendas, minutes, scheduled meetings, policies, finance, transparency and statutory documentation.

Planning

Community
Recreation grounds, community support, neighbourhood information and local services.

Halls & Facilities
Carnation Hall, Locks Ride Pavilion, Martins Heron & The Warren Community Centre and associated information.

News & Events

Contact

The final structure would be agreed with the Council before development begins.

We would not simply replicate unnecessary complexity from the existing website.

Council website management built specifically for Parish and Town Councils

A major difference between Parish Web & Host and a conventional website provider is Council Desk.

Council Desk is our own WordPress management system developed specifically around the day-to-day requirements of Parish and Town Councils.

Rather than expecting the Clerk to manage hundreds of PDF files manually, Council Desk provides a dedicated council administration environment from within WordPress.

For Winkfield Parish Council we recommend Council Desk Pro.

Document dashboard with agendas, minutes, document types, action buttons, and forthcoming meetings.

Public Front Desk

Council Desk provides residents with a dedicated Front Desk for public documents.

Instead of requiring visitors to understand where documents have been stored on the website, they can search and browse from one central location.

Residents can find information such as:

Agendas
Minutes
Policies
Financial documents
Annual reports
Notices
Supporting documents
Previous years’ documents

Documents can be organised into consistent categories and displayed according to their meeting or document date.

The Front Desk can also show upcoming council meetings, helping residents move naturally between meetings and their associated documentation.

Council Desk – Parish Web & Host Demo

Day-to-Day Website Management

The website would be built using WordPress.

Council staff would receive their own secure administration accounts and can be given full or restricted access depending on their role.

Routine updates are straightforward.

Staff would be able to:

Publish news
Add events
Update pages
Upload photographs
Add or update councillor information
Publish documents through Council Desk
Add meetings
Manage council facilities and assets
Create council tasks

You remain in control of your website.

A dashboard showing document tasks, meeting agenda items, and compliance overview for Council Desk.

Powerful Document Search

Council Desk is designed around one of the biggest problems with traditional council websites:

finding a document that was uploaded months or years ago.

Documents can be indexed so the public can search not only document titles and categories, but information contained within documents.

This provides residents with a far more useful document archive than a conventional list of PDF files.

Easier Document Publishing

For council staff, Council Desk provides a dedicated workflow for managing documents.

Instead of uploading a PDF to WordPress, finding its URL, creating a page or post and manually adding a hyperlink, the Clerk can publish documents through one central system.

Features include:

Document categories
Consistent preset document titles
Meeting or document dates
Draft document identification
Supporting documents
Document status and review tools
Public/private visibility controls
Search indexing
Structured document archives

This encourages consistency across the website and significantly reduces the amount of repetitive administration required.

Meeting Manager

Council Desk Pro includes a simple Meeting Manager.
Council staff can maintain upcoming meetings including:

Meeting title
Date
Time
Venue
Associated agenda

Upcoming meetings can then be displayed to residents through the website and Council Desk Front Desk.
This creates a much clearer connection between the meeting, its agenda and its associated documents.

Secure Councillor Area

Council Desk Pro also provides a secure area for councillors.

Documents that are not intended for the public website can be distributed securely without needing to create multiple email attachments.

Councillors can log in and see the council information that has been shared with them.

Council staff can manage document distribution and monitor whether information has been opened.

Where required, councillors can also be asked to approve or reject documents or actions.

This provides the Council with a simple additional communication channel without replacing normal email.

Task Manager

Council Desk Pro includes task management for internal council administration.

Tasks can include:

Due dates
Priority
Status
Recurrence
Related committee
Linked council documents

This provides the Clerk with a central overview of work that is open, overdue or completed.

Facilities & Maintenance

Council Desk Pro also provides tools for managing council-owned assets and facilities.

This is particularly relevant to Winkfield Parish Council because of its halls, pavilions, recreation grounds and other community assets.

The Facilities system can maintain an asset register containing information such as:

Asset reference
Asset type
Location
Postcode
What3words location
Photographs
Condition
Status
Responsible contact or contractor
Related council documents

Maintenance tasks can be created against assets, helping the Council maintain a clearer record of repairs, inspections and ongoing work.

Contractor information can also be associated with maintenance tasks.

Simple management for community halls and bookable spaces

For councils managing halls, pavilions and community venues, Hall Desk provides a dedicated system for presenting and managing bookable spaces through the council website.

Each venue can have its own information, photographs, facilities and pricing, while council staff can manage bookings and upcoming events from one central dashboard.

Hall Desk is designed to make it easier for residents to discover available venues and easier for council staff to keep bookings organised without relying on separate spreadsheets or complicated booking systems.

For Winkfield Parish Council, this could provide a particularly useful way to bring the management and public presentation of venues such as Carnation Hall, Locks Ride Pavilion and Martins Heron & The Warren Community Centre into the same council website environment.

Migrating Your Existing Website

We don’t expect the Council to rebuild everything itself

We understand that content migration is particularly important to Winkfield Parish Council.

There is a significant amount of information and historic documentation on the existing website and our objective would be to make the transition as straightforward as possible.

Where suitable access to the existing WordPress website or hosting account is available, we can export and migrate substantial amounts of existing content directly.

We would:

Audit the existing website structure.
Agree the new navigation with the Council.
Identify content that should be retained, reorganised or archived.
Migrate agreed pages, posts, images and documentation.
Reorganise council documents into the new structure.
Build and configure Council Desk.
Allow the Council to review the new website before launch.
Make agreed amendments.
Transfer the domain to the new website when approved.

The Council would therefore not be presented with an empty website and expected to copy its existing content across.

Where content needs to be manually recreated because it cannot be exported from the existing system, we would identify this during the initial migration review and discuss it with you before carrying out additional work.

What information will we need?

Our aim is to minimise the workload placed on council staff.

Initially we would normally need:

Administrator access to the existing website
Hosting access if available
Domain/DNS information when required
Council logo and branding files
Any new photographs you would particularly like us to use
Confirmation of information that should not be migrated
A nominated member of staff to review the development website

We can work from the content already published on the existing website rather than asking staff to recreate everything in Word documents.

Training & Support

Training and ongoing support are included with our hosting service.

We don’t simply build the website and disappear.

Training can be provided remotely and can concentrate on the areas staff will actually use rather than trying to teach every feature within WordPress.

After launch, if a member of staff gets stuck or needs advice, they can contact us.

There is no charge every time you ask a question.

Included support

WordPress assistance
Council Desk assistance
Website administration advice
Email support
Telephone support
Training
Software updates
Website maintenance

We work with Parish and Town Councils across the UK and understand that staff often need an answer from a real person rather than a generic support portal.

Hosting, Security & Backups

Our managed hosting service includes:

Secure UK website hosting
SSL security certificate
Website software updates
Malware protection
Website backups
Email backups
Unlimited website storage
Technical support
Training
Website maintenance

We manage the technical side of the hosting so the Council does not need to.

Blue and white ISOQAR ISO 50001 badge for accessible parish council websites and alcumus.co.uk.

Circular ISO 27001 ISOQAR badge highlights secure parish council website hosting and blue design.

Blue and white ISO 9001 badge for parish council website hosting, featuring a flower emblem.

Blue seal reading Uptime Institute Approved M&O Kao Data KLON DC1, parish council website hosting.

Your Premium Hosting plan:

All Websites are hosted on our secure UK Servers.
Websites are scanned for malware every day.
Your Website and Email is backed up (emails 30 days website 60 days)
We provide a FREE SSL Security certificate ( with our DNS)
Your website will automatically update itself.
You get Unlimited Storage.
Free Unlimited Email Accounts – each with a massive 10gb storage.
Additional Webmail service to access your emails.
FREE support.
FREE Training.
Email backups for 30 days
Website backup for 60 days

Features

You get your own admin access.
Add users to spread workload.
You can update all pages, posts, events…
Media Manager – Manage all your documents and images in one place.
Creative Visual editor to enhance page design.
Automatic software updates
No hidden charges

Pricing Summary

Website Design, Build & Migration

£599 one-off

Including:

Bespoke Winkfield Parish Council website design
New website structure and navigation
Migration of agreed existing website content
News section
Events calendar
Responsive mobile and tablet design
Accessibility-focused development
SSL configuration
WordPress administration accounts
Council Desk installation and configuration
Training
Pre-launch review

Any unusual migration work that cannot be identified until access to the existing system is provided would be discussed and agreed before any additional charge is incurred.

Each website is built within 3 days, ensuring a high-quality and efficient service. As some websites require more content or customization than others, we offer two options if additional work is needed:

Additional Development Time – You can choose to pay for extra time if you’d like us to continue building your site beyond the initial 3 days.
Self-Completion with Support – We provide full training and ongoing support so you can easily complete and manage your website yourself.

This approach keeps costs predictable while ensuring you get a website that meets your council’s needs. If you have any questions, we’re happy to help!

Domain name management

.Gov.uk Domains are £80pa £25 transfer fee. (it is not necessary to transfer your domain to us, if you wish it can stay where it is.)

Time Scales

Once we have the necessary access and the project has commenced, we would normally expect the new website to move through design, migration, review and launch over approximately 2–4 weeks.

For a website with an archive as substantial as Winkfield’s, we would rather allow adequate time to reorganise and check the migrated information than rush the site simply to meet an arbitrary launch date.

The existing website remains live while the new website is being developed.

Nothing changes publicly until the Council approves the new site.

Recommended Winkfield Package

First year

Website design, development & migration: £599
Managed hosting: £225
SSL Security Certificate: £84 per year (Free is we manage your domain)
Council Desk Pro introductory first year: £149
Hall Desk: £145 per year

Total first year: £1202

Domain management and email migration are only added if required.

From year two

Managed hosting: £225 per year
SSL Security Certificate: £84 per year (Free is we manage your domain)
Council Desk Pro: £195 per year (Council Desk Standard is Free)
Hall Desk: £145 per year

£649 per year

Plus .gov.uk domain management at £80 per year if the Council chooses us to manage the domain.

There are no compulsory long-term development contracts and no charges for routine support or training.

Why Parish Web & Host?

We specialise in websites and digital tools for Parish and Town Councils, so we understand the practical requirements around accessibility, transparency, documents, meetings, councillors and day-to-day administration.

Our service is designed to be straightforward and personal. We provide the website, hosting, support, training and ongoing help, while tools such as Council Desk Pro are developed specifically around the way councils actually work.

The aim is simple: to give the Council a professional, compliant website that is easier for residents to use and easier for staff to manage.

Parish Web&Host supporting Parish and Town Councils nationwide.

Map of England showing regions with markers clustered across the Midlands, South, and East.

Parish References

Perranarworthal Parish Council
Clerk: Tomas Hill
clerk@perranarworthal-pc.gov.uk
www.perranarworthal-pc.gov.uk

Hetton Town Council – Graeme Creedy
townclerk@hettontowncouncil.gov.uk
https://hettontowncouncil.gov.uk
Tel: 01915616600 – County Durham

Ferryhill Town Council – Sarah Hewitson
enquiries@ferryhill.gov.uk
Ferryhill Town Council
Tel: 01740 652157 – County Durham

Hampton PC – Emily Pacey
parishoffice@hampton-pc.gov .uk
Hampton Parish Council
Tel: 07521 649318

Isfield Parish Council
Clerk Lee Dunkley
clerk@isfieldparishcouncil.gov.uk
https://isfieldparishcouncil.gov.uk

Chisworth PC – Tracy Lewis
clerk@chisworthparishcouncil.gov.uk
http://chisworthparishcouncil.gov.uk
Tel: 01457 857784

The Next Step

If Winkfield Parish Council would like to proceed, the next stage is straightforward.

We would arrange access to the existing website, carry out an initial migration review and agree the proposed structure of the new website with you.

We can then begin developing the new site while the existing Winkfield Parish Council website remains completely unaffected.

You will be able to review the new website privately throughout development.

The website will only be made live once the Council is happy to proceed.

Thank you again for considering Parish Web & Host.

I would be very happy to answer any further questions or discuss any aspect of this proposal.

Mark Dolan
Parish Web & Host

Tel: 07399 417567
Email: mark@parishwebandhost.co.uk
Web: websitesforparishcouncils.co.uk

Frequently Asked Questions

If I have my email accounts with a separate company, is this a problem?

No, we just keep your domains email dns records the same and point the website part to our servers. This way there is no change to your email setup.

Do we need to have our domain name registered with Parish Web&Host?

No, you can keep your domain with anyone you like, it won’t affect our service to you. We would always recommend that if you manage the domain yourselves, that you use the domains clerk@ email address as the registered email with your providers account.

Does Parish Web&Host provide free SSL security certificates?

Yes, however we do require that your domains nameservers are pointing to us. If you are not transferring your domain to us and wish to keep your current nameservers, we would need to provide you with another SSL certificate that costs £84pa.

If we transfer our domain to you are there any fees?

No, there are no fees for migrating you domain. If you transfer a domain to us, you will only be billed on your set renewal date.

Do you charge for email accounts

No, you can create as a many email accounts as you like for Free!, they come with 10gb of storage each and we also include an archived backup for 30 days.

Does your Hosting service have any data storage limits?

At Parish Web&Host, you get unlimited storage.

What type of admin access do we get?

We provide you with full admin access, if you would prefer we can limit this access to just updating the content.