Essex Police website anniversary

The former Chief Constable of Essex Police John Burrow launched their first Police website over 25 years ago in March 1998.

The site was originally created as part of a 12-month pilot scheme designed to give members of the public the chance to find out information about Essex Police.

Twenty-five years and five more Chief Constables later, the site has been redesigned and updated five times. Each redesign brought improved technology to give members of the public more information about projects and initiatives run by Essex Police and the chance to report crime and many other issues online.

The current site is part of the national police 'Single Online Home' which hosts 32 of the UK's police service websites.

Platforms and Insight Manager David White has worked on the development of all five of Essex Police’s websites. He said:

“When Essex Police joined the worldwide web 25 years ago, the aim was to provide a new opportunity for the people of Essex and further afield to find out information about the force.

“Since then, the internet has evolved hugely and combined with social media, it has become part of everyday life for almost everyone in Essex.

“The role of our website was once to house useful information about Essex Police. Although it still serves this purpose, its role has developed greatly and now gives busy members of the public the chance to save time by reporting non-emergency crime and other issues to us online.

“Today the website sits alongside our social media channels Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and You Tube which give us another way to interact with the people of Essex."

We've published the original website as it was on the day of the launch, 19 March 1998. The entire site fitted onto a 3.5" floppy disk (1.44Mb) and contained 40 web pages.