A NEW website has been launched by Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service.

The site hwfire.org.uk has been completely redesigned and now automatically adapts for viewing on tablets and smart phones.

Mark Yates, chief fire officer, said: “An important part of our desire to make communities safer is to communicate advice to the public.

“We work tirelessly and have had a high degree of success in this arena: we attend a third less incidents than we did 12 years ago, including a 50 per cent fall in the number of fires we attend.

“The service's website is a key tool for keeping people informed and while our old site was a respected source of information across a range of subjects, it had become outdated and wasn't as user friendly as expected, especially now so many people access the web on tablets and smart phones.

“I would like to welcome all the residents of Herefordshire and Worcestershire to try out our new website.

“The redesign has made it easier for you to read, easier for you to navigate your way around and easier for you to interact with your fire and rescue service.”

The new site features online forms for a free home fire safety check, an events calendar and an interactive map showing the location of local fire stations.

Students from the University of Worcester’s media lab designed the website.

Liz Coulter-Smith, senior lecturer in web design and development at the university, who oversaw the project, said: “The site was created by only three students: a designer, a developer and a content manager.

“The primary purpose for the site was to design a ‘sustainable and maintainable’ website that would take Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service into the coming decade.

“These requirements have meant that the site needed to be responsive or, in other words, designed for all devices.

“It also meant that information from all areas of the organisation needed the facility, built by us, to keep the content up-to-date and fresh.”