It's been a year and a half in the making but London police are launching a new user-friendly, interactive website.
The force's previous website had not been modified since 2009 and left it with an under whelming online presence.
"The reality was that we really hadn't had an opportunity to keep it current. We really needed to update it," says Sergeant Glenn Hadley. "We recognized through feedback that we received from the public and through our attempts to actually communicate our messages to the public that we were having difficulties because our site was so antiquated."
Police received a $100,000 grant from the Ministry of the Attorney General for the project and held a community consultation to determine how the website could better serve Londoners.
Among the new features is an option to view content in over 100 languages.
"When we wrote it we made sure we got rid of all of that police lingo as much as we possibly could," says Hadley. "Now the information that people are getting is information that they can understand."
Multiple contact locations have been placed throughout the new website to allow the public to initiate contact and ask police questions more easily.
"One of the features that we have is an 'ask a traffic cop a question.' We all have those questions that we just don't know the answer to when we're driving down the road," says Hadley. "There is a form in place on the website were you can ask Sergeant Amanda Pfeffer, our traffic sergeant, a question about the rules of the road and get a response from her."
Hadley says every aspect of the website is compliant with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.
The new police website at www.londonpolice.ca goes live at 9am on Friday.
