If you're old enough to remember the internet before broadband arrived in the UK, consider yourself something of a pioneer. Four years before broadband's commercial roll-out began, back in 1996, the Richmond Partnership - a forerunner to Richmond Yorkshire CIC - registered the domain name richmond.org for the town. Yes, that was thirty years ago and what a prescient decision that turned out to be!

In the years that followed, a very basic website was launched, jointly operated by the Town Council, the Partnership and the Business Association. This group engaged local web designer Moonburst to develop the site's design and build up what become the legacy content that still underpins what is now branded Welcome to Richmond.

In 2007, a formal commercial arrangement saw Moonburst acquire the domain outright, continuing to develop the site until 2021, when the founding webmaster retired and transferred it to the WTR group. This is an affiliation of the town's five major attractions. WTR secured funding for a radical redesign, carried out by Purple Creative on the Aske Estate. At this point, the site functioned more as a promotional platform for the five attractions than for the town as a whole - and, in practice, only two of the five ever contributed content.

Soon afterwards, WTR disbanded, and the site's future looked uncertain. The timing coincided with a growing consensus that the town's image had become fragmented by a proliferation of websites, each claiming to represent Richmond, yet each one partisan.

In response, Richmond Information Centre closed its own site, folding its content into Welcome to Richmond, and now works in partnership with the former WTR attractions. ORBTA - the Original Richmond Business and Tourism Association — soon followed suit, transferring its own content across too.

The town now has a single, unitary website - one that represents Richmond far more effectively and gives its many partners a genuine vehicle for cooperation.

richmond.org stands as another wonderful example of something that runs through this town's DNA: the desire to do the best for Richmond.