A NEW website promoting Pickering has been launched by the town’s business group.

Welcome to Pickering, which includes more than 50 businesses, went live last Thursday at an event in the Memorial Hall.

Neil Armstrong, chairman of Pickering in Business, said the aim was to provide a comprehensive guide of the town for visitors and residents.

“The website provides a directory where people can find everything from the history of Pickering to coming events,” he said. “There are also sections on the different businesses in the town and where visitors can eat and drink.”

All members will have their own page on the site, at a cost of £50.

“It has taken time to get this off the ground, but we did not want to accept second best,” said Mr Armstrong. “The feedback has been massively positive and I am sure the website will now go from strength the strength.”

Funds for the website have been provided by the North York Moors National Park and Pickering Town Council.

Mr Armstrong said: “The website is owned and managed by Pickering in Business and members are passionate about the heritage and future development of the town, and want to promote Pickering to residents and visitors.”

Rob Davies, from Ryedale-based web design it’seeze, said the objective was to produce a website that looked great.

He said: “It needed to show everything that Pickering and the surrounding area has to offer, both for the tourist and the residents, including leisure, shopping, eating and drinking and business. Pickering is unique and the website needed to reflect this.

“The website also needed to be exciting enough to persuade as many local businesses as possible to come on board. In doing so they will help generate an income which will be reinvested in the towns activities and ongoing promotion.

“I wanted to create a website that Pickering would be proud of and believe we have together produced something really special. It was a fantastic project to work on and I look forward to seeing it develop in the coming months and years.”

www.welcometopickering.co.uk/