The Stray Ferret today marks its first anniversary, celebrating rapid growth in the last 12 months.
The website launched earlier than planned to cover the covid crisis as it unfolded last March, in the weeks before the first lockdown began.
In the last year, we have published more than 3,000 stories, had more than five million page views and attracted 12,000 social media followers.
The site has focused on delivering valuable news for the community during the pandemic, from keeping track of the daily covid figures to telling the stories of those doing their best to keep everyone smiling in the toughest of times, such as last year’s VE Day celebrations. Free jobs listings for the district and an index of businesses have also been added as we play our part in helping the local economy to survive.
After one of the most difficult years anyone in the Harrogate district can remember, we will also be ensuring those who have been lost in the last year are not forgotten. Our series of tributes to lost loved ones begins next week.
Meanwhile, we have also carried out in-depth investigations into how public money is spent.
We published a series of articles on the decision-making behind Harrogate Borough Council’s move to its new civic centre, showing that the failure to take into account the high value of the land at Knapping Mount when presenting the figures to the public.
We also investigated how the council’s failure to produce an acceptable local plan left the district open to predatory developers seeking opportunities to build homes for profit, rather than to meet local need.
Our journalists have broken exclusive stories, such as the hotelier who held a New Year’s Eve party in breach of covid lockdown rules and police investigations into allegations of fraud at a company where a Harrogate councillor and MP’s case worker was a “person of significant control”.
We began publishing with a small team of journalists in March 2020. Since then, the news team has grown to seven, along with four commercial staff and a content producer.
Tamsin O’Brien, owner of the Stray Ferret and former head of BBC Yorkshire, said the news team has aimed to cover the issues that people locally care about:
“Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our stories, read us and followed us on social media. We know that there is a real demand for high quality, local digital news content.
We have really tried to cover every aspect of how covid has impacted lives and investigated the issues that matter to people. We live in a time of great change and people locally want to engage in those issues and have a voice.
“We are frequently asked to look into matters concerning our readers, demonstrating their trust in us to report it accurately, impartially and fairly.”
Over the coming months, the Stray Ferret will be working with more local businesses to help them reach a large and loyal audience. The aim is for the site to be fully funded through advertising, with a speciality in making video shorts for social media on behalf of local advertisers.
Head of commercial Emma Harris said the next six months will be significant as lockdown measures are eased:
“Now we have an established quality news platform, we can concentrate on driving the commercial side of the business forward.
“Times have been difficult for businesses, however, with all legal restrictions set to be lifted in June, I am confident that businesses will want to celebrate what they have to offer and we’re looking forward to partnering with them.”
The Stray Ferret is also committed to developing journalism students and has work placement arrangements in place with Leeds University and Leeds Beckett University. In the past year we’ve had four successful work placements.