Council chiefs have approved spending £1m on a new Hertfordshire County Council ‘next generation’ website.

Council chiefs have approved spending £1 millon on a new Hertfordshire County Council ‘next generation’ website.

The site, which will run using the latest technology, should be online by 2016 and will need a one-off investment of £1m to complete the upgrade.

Hertfordshire County Councillors approved the spend on Monday at a full cabinet meeting.

It is hoped the website will save the council up to £240,000 a year by 2016/17 as it will cost less to run.

By making the website easier to use, they estimate fewer calls will be made to the Customer Service Centre, which will also save money.

At present the website has five million visits a year and takes 850,000 transactions.

Frances Button, cabinet member for customer service, said: “Our aim is to make the county council’s website so good that residents will be able to access our services directly online without having to pick up the phone, although we will of course keep a phone line available too.”

Opposition councillor Robin Parker, Liberal Democrats, said he would rather have seen the money spent on repairs to roads and pavements.

He said: “The website does need to be improved because people expect better these days, but the money could have been spent on other things which would have benefitted more people.”