Volunteers build rival version of Birmingham City Council website
“Stuff like being able to pay your council tax – trying to do that from the home page is labyrinthine.
“It also doesn’t have basic stuff like RSS feeds so I was sitting waiting for my train and I built the RSS feeds in an hour for the site.”
“It’s early days so you are looking at something I have thrown together. It’s not perfect but the point of it is it’s simple.”
One of the key areas the DIY website builders are hoping to improve on is integration with sites like Fix My Street, a page where people can report problems such as vandalism or broken paving slabs.
BCC DIY has “scraped” content from the council’s official website to create the new site.
But the alternative website should be more interactive, according to Mr Lewandowski, and operate like a “wiki” which enables people to edit and change pages if they know they are out of date.
“We are making a tool a bit like a wiki where anyone can go onto a page and rewrite it – we are turning it on its head. Whereas the council stuff is locked down, we are using the city’s knowledge to change it where it’s wrong.”
BCC DIY is holding a special day on Friday at the Moseley Exchange where anyone can get involved in building the community-generated version.
A spokesman for Birmingham City Council said it had no comment on www.bccdiy.com.
