The Government has given one of its websites a traffic target for the first time, telling the Ordnance Survey (OS) to increase its daily visitors by 50 per cent by March 2002.

Sally Keeble MP, minister at the department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, told the Commons last week that, as one of six key targets, the mapping agency must increase the user numbers of its websites by 50 per cent.

The OS, one of the Government's better websites, will be relaunched this November with a host of new features. It currently has around 10,000 unique visitors a day.

Director general and chief executive of Ordnance Survey, Vanessa Lawrence, said the targets were "challenging and tougher than we have ever faced before".

Check out the website here.