Online Journalism News

Five new regional BBC News websites planned

The BBC is planning to launch five new local area websites for regions in the UK.

In addition to the corporation today launching its public consultation on proposals for £68m investment in local video online, it also revealed that two new websites covering regions in Northern Ireland were under construction.

These sites are being developed under on-going plans to improve BBC Local sites in Scotland and Northern Ireland to bring them into line with current provision in England and Wales.

A further three new sites for English counties: Cheshire, Buckinghamshire and Surrey will also be launched as destinations for local video services if plans are approved.

Journalism.co.uk revealed in April that the BBC had proposed increasing the online news coverage of Cheshire in response to a local journalist's long-running campaign for additional online coverage of the area.

Proposed video services for all other regions are expected to tie-in with existing regional and local news websites.

The corporation also outlined today broad plans for further enhancements in 2008/9, include extending the opportunities for user participation on BBC local sites, improving search, navigation and site architecture and introducing a greater use of map-based technology.

These measures, along with the new Northern Ireland site launches, fall outside the scope of the public consultation assessment on local video and are therefore not reliant on the approval of the proposals for them to go ahead.

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