Praise for My Tunstall from Culture Sectary Jeremy Hunt

More local

But here’s the irony. Just as technology drives globalisation, it also drives localisation. And consumers want both.

Look at how Mappa Mercia’s gritting map helped local communities in December’s snow.

It allowed people from all over Birmingham, Walsall and Solihull to plan their Christmas journeys by checking which roads had been gritted.

Or sites like MyTunstall in Stoke-on-Trent which encouraged local people to band together to help clear roads and pathways and make it easier for everyone to travel around.

Or the hyperlocal blogs that covered everything from school closures to the disruption of rubbish collection services.
It is easy to be patronising about these hyperlocal services. But take a look at the evidence about what consumers truly value.

8 out of 10 people in this country consider local news important.

‘Focus on the local area’ is consistently ranked as a high priority. And nearly 7 out of 10 adults feel that the ‘localness’ of stories is more important than them being professionally produced.

Our vision of a connected, big society is one in which we really do value the local as much as the national or international.
And local television is one area – perhaps the only area – in which our outstandingly successful media sector has been outstandingly unsuccessful in responding to consumer needs.

The painful truth is that we probably have one of the most centralised media ecologies of any developed country.

Think about Sheffield, Bristol, or Birmingham – all major cities that don’t have a single local TV station between them.

What is good enough for Dublin or Galway, Lyon or Marseille, Catalonia or Calgary, is certainly good enough for them.

And if we want to be the best, we should settle for no less.

Jeremy Hunt
Cource

Ok, maybe I've milked it a little bit, but it's still praise to be singled out.

Ha ha, the phone has been ringing off the hook, , saying that I'm always happy to help out people wanting to start their community site going. It does feel great though to at the beginning and to be part of the digital difference, that is hyperlocal.

Whilst I'm at it, the same sort of praise has to go out to others in the city (and just a little south of it) who are making a difference.

I'm talking about Visit Burslem, Longton South, Pits N Pots & their radio station 6Towns and Bits of Stone