The Dunedin City Council has rejected claims it did not employ the services of local web designers for its new website.
The council spent two years and $276,000 on redeveloping the 10-year-old website, with the new site launched five weeks ago.
Using mainly in-house resources and local companies, it employed the services of a Wellington-based firm for part of the project, council knowledge centre manager Will Croft said.
Squiz NZ Ltd, of Wellington, was employed to implement a web content management system.
While 90% of the work on the site was completed "in-house", the council also used the services of local web designer NBSP, he said.
"The project team's decision was to work with our proven technology and design partners, ensuring that we were able to control costs, maintain quality and deliver to tight project time frames."
The redevelopment of the website was not put out for tender, Mr Croft said.
Cyber Marketing Ltd online marketing director Ted Fox, of Dunedin, said the project should have gone out for tender to local firms because "there is enough talent here".
While the old website was "tired", the new site was not compatible with all browsers, was not search engine-friendly, had no foreign language content and was too expensive, he said.
"We would have done it for half of that [price]."
However, Mr Croft said feedback had been "overwhelmingly positive" since the launch of the site.
"The response from our customers has been incredibly positive, which is encouraging because there is a lot more to come yet from the new website."
The council plans to survey customers regarding the website and make improvements accordingly.
The website address is www.dunedin.govt.nz
