Building a Website for the Council's Commercial Services

Harrow Council is a leader in promoting commercial services, finding opportunities to generate revenue and re-invest in public services.

Selling commercial services is rapidly becoming a key focus for Councils up and down the country. As a concept, it provides a ‘win-win’ scenario that benefits the Council and the general public. Any additional revenue generated from commercial activities is reinvested back into public services. Harrow Borough Council, in North West London, is a pioneer of the commercialisation model.

Harrow wanted a website that was both functional and scalable. It had to be easily accessible to the public and allow for future growth and development of the site. They also required the website to be easy to manage and maintain, so that employees could update information without requiring any development or design experience

Harrow wanted a website that was both functional and scalable. It had to be easily accessible to the public and allow for future growth and development of the site. They also required the website to be easy to manage and maintain, so that employees could update information without requiring any development or design experience.

With this in mind, we built a site using the latest open source software and current best practice for optimisation. The CMS gave more control to Harrow’s staff and meant that the design would work across all platforms.

The site allows Harrow to expand on its commercial service offering, as an example, they’ve recently added an Advertising & Marketing Opportunities section.

We’ve also supported Harrow to add a new booking system, which is being used for their Training & Bulky Waste Collection services. This system is fully integrated with their internal payment system and incorporates a reporting feature to help them manage services internally.

Full Range of Digital Services

To emphasise the key principles of the commercialisation model, we had to ensure that our designs kept within brand guidelines. Harrow wanted their values represented across the site to promote their positive work. It was important that we understood the brand so that every design we created was consistent.

A website is much more than just the platform that they are built on. We were able to offer Harrow a full end-to-end service for support and optimisation of their site. This included Web Design, Development, Technical Support, Hosting and User Training. As with all our clients, they were able to select the services they required without a contract or any ongoing obligation.

As a result, we managed to transition from order to live in a few weeks. We produced a website that was built to Harrow’s specific needs and was completed without incurring significant cost.

We just wanted to say how happy we are with the work you have carried out for us. We have been blown away by both the speed and quality of your delivery.

Harrow Council