AN ARCHIVE of Canvey’s history and heritage has relaunched after a massive rebuild.

Canvey’s Community Archive, which houses memories, photographs and documents of the island’s history, has relaunched with a brand-new website.

The site, where people could submit their own pieces of information, had been frozen for six weeks while the rebuild took place.

The archive had raised £4,000 over the course of 18 months to fund the new site, as their old one was 11-years-old and not fit for purpose.

On Saturday, a relaunch ceremony was held at Canvey Library, with Canvey Mayor Alan Acott and representatives of Canvey Rotary and the archive.

Tracy Winch, president of Canvey Rotary, cut the ribbon over a computer with the site on to mark the opening.

On the website, there are 600 Categories, 5,200 pages and a huge 17,000 media files of photos and audio clips from the island’s history.

It was first formed in 2006 in partnership with Essex County Council Libraries, The Essex Record Office, East of England Museums, and the Libraries and Archives Council.

Janet Penn, editor of the archive, said: “We are very grateful and give thanks to everyone who contributed, in particular the Canvey Island Rotary who gave us half of the money needed.

“The site is now ready for the future. We invited the President of Canvey Rotary Tracy Winch to ‘cut the ribbon’ to relaunch the site.

“We had a large exhibition which you can see part of in the photos and laptops on hand to show people the new upgraded site.

“The response was very favourable with comments such as ‘nice and bright and new’ ‘so easy to use’.”

Anyone can submit materials to be stored on the archive, which is run and managed by the people of Canvey.

Visit www.canveyisland.org.