CHILDREN celebrated the launch of a new community website with the help of a special spooky visitor.

The Leys Children’s Centre launched its new online resource, theleyschildrenscentre.org, at the ABLE centre in Blackbird Leys Road, Blackbird Leys, Oxford, last week.

Children’s literary character Winnie the Witch flew in to help parents and children get to grips with the new site, which cost £2,000.

The webpage gives parents with young children detailed information about services offered at the centre’s three hubs, Cuddesdon Corner, Pegasus School in Field Avenue, and Windale School in Windale Avenue.

Details on the Leys Health Centre and Co-operative nursery in Cuddesdon Way are also available.

The website provides games for children, information on what new parents are entitled too, tips on babies’ speech and language development, and links to information on jobs, money matters, childcare and training.

Organisers hope it will act as a tool to reach out to those who have not visited the Wesley Close centre in the past.

Centre head Jenny Martin also hoped it would encourage people to learn more about computers and take part in many of the free IT courses held on the estate.

She said: “We didn’t have a site before. People tell us that they are really thrilled, they say it’s easy to use.

“We can now reach everyone in the community. We know there are people who don’t know what we do and would probably enjoy using our services.”

Parent Merisha Anderson, from Blackbird Leys, said: “Even if your reading is not that good, you can find things out.”

Staff are about to roll out an interactive forum on the website so parents can leave messages for each other and feedback to staff about services.

Ms Martin said the website was partly designed by the community, and a competition was held to design a logo for it.

Photos for the site were taken by staff members and volunteers worked with the website developer to upload information.

At the celebration event, mums and dads went online to explore the webpage and entered a free online treasure hunt competition.

Oxfordshire County Council manages the centre.

County Hall spokesman Marcus Mabberley said: “Many other children’s centres nationally have such websites and, as more and more people have access to the Internet, the site will be an excellent resource for people to get information all in a single place.”