Call to update traders' website

The club's and societies page has been under construction since March, 16, 1999.

A campaign by Bangor traders is under way to revive the city's website which was last updated almost five years ago.

The website www.bangor.org.uk, set up by a group of traders called the Bangor Regeneration Partnership, to promote the city has not been updated since March 1999.

Now the city's chamber of trade are getting together with the Bangor Regeneration Partnership to bring the website and Bangor's image on the Internet into the 21st Century.

Included on the current website is an Employment Service job application for a pest control technician with the closing date set for November, 22, 1999 and links to just three businesses.

Jeanne Molyneaux, from the Bangor Regeneration Partnership, chamber of trade and the city's voluntary city manager admitted the site was "not very impressive."

She said the website had been dormant for so long because so few businesses had expressed an interest in advertising on the site when it was first launched.

Another reason is because the regeneration partnership has not met for the past few years although it still exists and there are definite plans to revive it.

She said: "Many local organisations really sell themselves short - that is they do not sell themselves at all.

"Yet statistics now suggest more than one third of small firms are using the internet to attract customers inside and outside their locality.

"There is something unique about Bangor - a mixture of the old and new.

"We've got the longest high street in Wales and the cathedral and university.

"We also want to be part of the new marina development across the straits in Beaumaris that's expected to attract 2,000 boats to the area."

'Commercial centre'

She is contacting the city's traders to set up a business directory and has spoken to the Bangor web designers WISS, who provide the server free of charge, to get the site redesigned.

It is hoped the website will be revamped over the coming weeks. Gwynedd County Councillor Jean Roscoe, who represents the Hirael ward in Bangor, said the internet would help boost Bangor's tourism trade.

"All the youngsters use it and so do a lot of holiday makers.

"Bangor is undergoing huge changes with the redevelopment of the city centre and Marks and Spencer coming which should be put on the website to encourage people to come here.

"Bangor is the commercial centre of Gwynedd and a busy little city that has totally changed in the last 40 years from a quiet, rural town."