A .gov.uk address does two things for a parish council. It tells residents the website and the emails are genuinely the council’s, which matters more every year as scam emails get better. And it lets the council stop paying for, and worrying about, a .org.uk or .co.uk domain that a former clerk registered in their own name in 2009. There is no law requiring it, and the small central government grant that helped councils move has ended, but the direction is clear and most councils that haven’t moved yet will.
Who can have one
Any parish, town or community council. The domain is the council’s, held in the council’s name; the clerk is the registrant who applies and manages it, with a resolution of the council behind them. The smallest parishes, which have a parish meeting rather than a council, aren’t required to have a website at all, and should ask the helper service whether a domain is available to them.
The name
The Government Digital Service sets the naming rules. The name must be the council’s full name, such asbrookfordparishcouncil.gov.uk or brookfordparish.gov.uk, or an abbreviation, in which case it must end -pc.gov.uk, -parish.gov.uk or -parishcouncil.gov.uk:brookford-pc.gov.uk is the common choice, and town councils use forms likebiggleswade-tc.gov.uk. Acronyms that aren’t widely known need approval, and a name the same as or too close to an existing .gov.uk name is refused. Settle it at a council meeting before applying, because changing it later means applying again.
How to apply
- The council resolves to apply for a .gov.uk domain and names the clerk to do it. Minute it; the registrar may ask for the minute.
- Choose a registrar from GDS’s Parish Council Domain Helper Service list on GOV.UK (about thirty of them). Only approved registrars can hold .gov.uk domains, GDS doesn’t recommend one over another, and they vary in price and in how quickly they answer emails. Ask your county association which one other councils in the county use. The helper service itself answers questions at parish.helper@domains.gov.uk.
- The registrar submits the application to GDS, who check that the council exists and the name follows the rules. Allow a couple of weeks; it can be quicker.
- Once approved, the registrar holds the domain and sets up its DNS records: where the website is, where the email goes. You don’t get a control panel at most registrars. You email them the records your website and email suppliers give you, and they make the change, usually within a few working days.
What it costs
More than a .co.uk. Registrars pay the .gov.uk registry £100 a year for the first two years and £50 after that, and charge the council somewhere between about £40 and £100 a year for the domain alone, sometimes with a one-off registration fee on top. A registrar that offers the domain for much less, or free, is usually recovering it through a website or email package; you don’t have to buy those from them, and it’s better not to tie the domain to a supplier you might one day want to leave. The £100 central government grant that helped the first thousand councils move was fully allocated by January 2025. The domain fee is the council’s own cost; a website supplier that says it “handles your .gov.uk domain” is coordinating with the registrar on your behalf, not paying for it.
Moving the website and email to the new address
The order matters. Set up the website on the new domain first and check it works. Then set up email on the new domain and give every councillor their new address. Then, and only then, point the old domain at the new one, so that anyone following an old link or sending to an old address still gets through. Keep the old domain for at least a year after the move, which is cheap, and put a line on the website saying the address has changed. Residents have the old one bookmarked and the district council has it on file.
Keeping it
The domain is renewed annually with the registrar. Put the renewal date in the council’s calendar with the insurance and the audit, and make sure the registrar has the clerk’s council address, not a personal one, so that the renewal notice reaches whoever is clerk at the time. A .gov.uk domain that lapses because the notice went to a clerk who left is more common than it should be, and getting it back is slow.
One more thing worth knowing: the registrar controls the domain’s records, so if you change website supplier, the new supplier will ask you to ask the registrar to change them. That’s normal. It takes a few days, and a supplier who knows councils will build the wait into the plan.