Visitors to Durham Region’s website may be pleasantly surprised by a fresh, mobile-friendly, “resident-centric” look.

Launched Wednesday (Dec. 13), the Region says the new website was developed after “extensive community consultation”.  In addition to increased accessibility, the site features news and emergency notifications as well as public meeting and events calendars.

A new eProcurement system for bids and tenders was launched as part of this project earlier this year.

“The development of the new durham.ca has been a transformative exercise for the Region of Durham. Both staff and the community collaborated on developing a new, innovative website that will continue to provide service excellence for residents,” said Roger Anderson, Regional Chair and Chief Executive Officer in a release. “This much-needed investment in our website, one of our most important communications tools, will help us reach our goal of sharing information with the public in an open, transparent and timely way.”

The new website has several new features, including:

• Regional Services Map and A-to-Z listing: This new, interactive feature was a collaborative effort among the Region of Durham and the eight local area municipalities to assist residents in accessing information for both municipal and Regional services.
• Subscribe function: Residents are able to subscribe to news, notices and emergency alerts to learn about Regional initiatives in a timely way.
• Event calendars: Users are able to access event calendars for public meetings, Regional events (such as open houses and public engagement opportunities), and community events and festivals. The new subscribe feature allows residents to stay up to date on the latest event news via email updates.
• Search bar: Information on the new website can be easily accessed via a search bar function that is prominent on the home page of the new durham.ca, allowing for a user-friendly experience.

“The redevelopment project was significant from a public engagement perspective, as numerous employees and members of the public provided their feedback,” explained Garry Cubitt, Chief Administrative Officer. “We want to thank all participants in this process for providing their valuable feedback, as we continue to roll out new website features in 2018.”

In addition, the websites DurhamTourism.ca and InvestDurham.ca are now part of the new durham.ca in an effort to streamline how information is delivered to the public. Both websites will automatically redirect to their respective new sections on the new durham.ca, which will continue to be updated with the latest information, news and events.

More than 1,000 responses were received from the initial durham.ca website survey. Additional focus groups took place and included participation from Regional staff, councillors, mayors and members of the public. The feedback received from consultations led to the development of a sitemap (website navigation plan) and new look for the website.

Residents are encouraged to continue to share feedback on the new website by emailing YourOpinionCounts@durham.ca, or by using our online feedback form.