Welcome to our brand new Diocesan website!

Graeme Pollard, Diocesan Secretary, said today: "A lot of hard work has gone into the development of the new website for the Diocese.

"As we continue on with Vision 2026: Healthy Churches Transforming Communities, creating a modern online 'shop window' was a crucial piece of work. 

"We hope people like what they see and enjoy using a website which is much easier to access on a variety of online platforms. We will continue to refine and add to the website in the coming weeks and months."

The previous site was based on technology that was around eight years old; before the latest generation of smartphones and iPads/tablets had been invented. This meant it was not particularly user-friendly, especially for those wanting to access information 'on the go'. 

Dave Champness, Diocesan Vision Coordinator adds: "As well as information about the number of visits to the historic website pages we also consulted face-to-face with groups of clergy and lay people before deciding the final design. 

"Whilst we know that the Diocesan website is used by clergy, parish officers and parishioners to access information and links to helpful resources, we also know that some casual viewers looking at our site are not familiar with what a Christian is or believes and what purpose a parish church or chaplain serves, let alone what a diocese is and does."

Dave continues: "So we have deliberately designed the upgraded site so that overview information for the non-churchgoer is easily accessible."

The new Diocesan website has been created in response to current need and it arrives at a time when the national Church of England website is also changing.

Ronnie Semley, Diocesan Communications Manager says: “We were asked by the national church to help bring together several focus groups involving clergy and laity from across our Diocese to feed into the consultation on the new national website.

“These focus groups were held over a day at our offices in Blackburn and we also took the opportunity to get face-to-face feedback on the plans for our own new Diocesan website plans as well at the same time.

“This feedback combined with previous input, such as via the Articles of Enquiry which are sent to all parishes for response annually, was invaluable in guiding our work to create our site which has now gone live. The attractive new design also reflects our Vision 2026 branding."

Now the site is live, any feedback related to navigation; information available etc, should be directed to dave.champness@blackburn.anglican.org, ronnie.semley@blackburn.anglican.org or communicate@blackburn.anglican.org

The new www.blackburn.anglican.org site is also up to date in other ways. For example the new site allows better use of pictures and the embedding of other media, such as YouTube videos, while all the latest tweets from our Twitter feed @cofelancs appear immediately on the homepage.

• Please note, the Diocesan website can still be found at the same address: www.blackburn.anglican.org