Lincolnshire County Council is providing space for third-party advertising on its web site, claiming that the deal is the first of its kind in the public sector.

The web site will support different types of online advertising including messaging plus unit (MPU) – a square ad which usually sits in a news story – as well as skyscrapers, banners and leader boards.

The site was redesigned for this purpose by local government web development agency Abacus e-Media, and all aspects of web advertising, including selling space and collecting revenue, will be managed by Channel 4's in-house digital advertising unit 4DS.

Public sector organisations should not ignore advertising opportunities, said Peter Barton, head of web and information services at Lincolnshire council.

“The argument that the public sector should not be seen to have commercial advertising on its web sites does not stand up to scrutiny," he said.

"We already carry advertising in our monthly newspaper and a council web site is no different.

"We have put in place a clearly defined acceptable use policy which details the procedures for controlling the content. We have also been very careful to ensure our own branding is not diluted by the inclusion of advertising material and there will be no degradation in the performance of the site caused by graphical format ads.”

Peter Woodfine, business development manager at 4DS said: “This could be the first step in a massive new medium for local and national organisations to advertise their products and services."