FAMILIES in Medway have been given a "customized and exclusive" 24-hour website offering them up-to-the-minute local news and sport - plus information on jobs and homes.

The website coincides with the launch of the Kent Messenger Group's twice-weekly Medway Messenger.

The new website http://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway will be updated three times each day - at 9 am, 1pm and 5pm - by the KM's New Media department. It will also provide news and information from around the county.

Tony Bridger, the KM Group's New Media editor, said: "This is an exciting development for the people in Medway who now have their own self-contained website with everything else in Kent filtered out - convenience at a mouse-click, if you like.

"On news, for instance, they can get a Medway-wide picture but then click on to Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham stories, with community and village news on a click-on level beneath that.

"Jobs will be local Medway ones, as will houses and cars for sale, classified advertisements relating to the local area and What's On locally too.

"For speed, all Kent Messenger journalists are emailing copies of major breaking stories directly to us so that we can get them onto the web very rapidly.

"We are looking to deliver the most up-to-date and comprehensive local news and sports services on-line anywhere in the county." Tony Bridger, assistant editor John White, and a technical development team headed by Ben Hall, have been fine-tuning the service during the past two months.

It has long been realised that Medway is something of a self-contained area, with its own distinctive character and a disinclination to be allied too readily with Maidstone, Gravesend or coastal areas. "This is the first time we have achieved this degree of segmentation of the service," added Mr Bridger. "We are reviewing strategy at the moment." The new-look Medway Messenger is being published each week on Mondays and Fridays.