Four years ago Trinity Mirror pulled the plug on the Long Eaton Advertiser. The paper still had good circulation (around 6000 copies sold per week) and was well supported by local advertisers. Since the closure the town has suffered economic and social decline - people don't know what is happening and community events and initiatives are going unreported and unsupported.
Meanwhile, businesses are closing, as they have lost their link to their customers - they have nowhere to advertise, and no way of shouting about their achievements.
We plan to put this right with the launch of a new web-based news platform for the town -provisionally titles Long Eaton Today - which will offer up-to-the-minute local news, sport, community forums and low-cost advertising.
We are setting up as a social enterprise, so all profits after running costs have been met will be reinvested back into the project, to develop, improve and expand the service, and to support community events and initiatives.
We need to raise £3500 to build and develop a high performance website, using SEO to raise our profile as quickly and effectively as possible, and a state-of-the-art content management system, so we can offer a viable alternative to a traditional weekly newspapers.
We also need to buy a good computer and camera so we can start reporting and writing the news, and getting the town's residents back in the know as quickly as we can.
I am a locally-based journalist with the skills, drive and passion to make this project work. All I need is some financial help to get it off the ground.
Many thanks for reading this.
Andy Done-Johnson.
