THAXTED residents and visitors can now take advantage of an impressive new website.

Run by Thaxted Parish Council and volunteers, the newly re designed comprehensive site - thaxted.co.uk - has taken advantage of all the latest web technology. It was officially launched in front of guests at the Community Information Centre in Town Street on Thursday.

Chairman of the council’s web committee, Cllr Mike Collins, said: “By covering all aspects of the town from the home page it is a one-stop site for tourists, residents and council matters.”

Special features include a tickertape message line to flag up new or important information and a calendar which leads you to a diary of events.

“That is the thing we would like to stress - to have all the local events in one place requires event organisers to notify the website team of their activities. It has the potential to be free advertising right into every home,” said Cllr Collins.

“Local groups and organisations have a free listing and can also have a free webpage for which they are entirely responsible; this is a great offer for groups without a website.

“All businesses also have a free listing which includes their website link; let us know if you are missing. A limited few can sponsor the site and have a presence on all the pages.

“What is the weather for the next five days? Go to the website and there it is.”

A powerful search facility also enables site visitors quickly find the right place on this large site.

Representatives from Saffron Walden and Dunmow were invited to the launch to promote the tourism links between the towns. Now that UDC has no tourism department the individual towns and parishes are slowly developing an informal linking network.

Pre-publication copies of Mark Arman’s A History of Thaxted, which now has a newly edited edition by Ken Baker, were also distributed to guests.