THE WARD
READER-OWNED · NO PROPRIETOR
A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Nobody has sat in that council chamber for six years. We do now.
The Ward is a reader-owned newspaper covering one city. Four reporters, every council meeting, every planning committee, every magistrates list. Owned by 3,900 members, one vote each, and nobody else.
You are reading this because the paper that used to cover your street stopped. Not suddenly — it thinned, then it went regional, then it went. What replaced it was a website with the same twelve stories as every other town. So a few hundred of us put in six pounds a month and hired reporters back. There is no owner to sell us, and no algorithm to please. There is a chamber, a court, a planning list, and four people whose job is to be in the room.
Wynn Fairhurst-Bode, Editor
3,900
MEMBER OWNERS, ONE VOTE EACH
Four
REPORTERS, ALL ON ONE CITY
None
SHAREHOLDERS, DONORS WITH VIEWS
01 — THE BEAT
What we cover every single week, without fail
Every week without exception: the full council and every committee, the planning list with what it means for your street, the magistrates and crown court lists, and a schools page that is not press releases.
Council and committees
Full council, cabinet, scrutiny, licensing, audit. We publish who voted which way and what it cost, the same week it happened — not a fortnight later from the minutes.
The planning list
Every application, translated. Not "outline consent, mixed use" but: this is the corner of your road, this is how tall, this is the deadline to object.
Magistrates and crown
The lists, attended in person. Names, charges, outcomes, and the cases nobody sends a press release about because there is nobody left to send it to.
Schools and health
Admissions, inspections, closures, the trust board that meets at 9am on a Tuesday. Reported from the meeting, not from the statement issued after it.
02 — THE NEWSROOM
The four reporters and their beats
Dee covers the council and has read every budget line since 2019. Sam does courts. Fenella does planning and housing. Ade does schools, health and everything that happens at 4pm on a Friday.
Fenella outside the civic offices, waiting on a planning officer who said ten minutes an hour ago. Most of this job is standing about, then writing quickly.
COUNCIL & BUDGET
Wynn Fairhurst-Bode
Every full council and cabinet meeting since we opened, and every budget line since 2019. If a figure moved between drafts, she has both drafts.
COURTS
Sam Oyelaran
Magistrates on Mondays, crown when it sits. Reports what was heard in open court, carefully, including the cases that end in nothing.
PLANNING & HOUSING
Fenella Wright
The weekly list, the committee, the appeals. Reads the viability assessments so you do not have to, and tells you the objection deadline while it still matters.
SCHOOLS, HEALTH & FRIDAYS
Ade Nwosu
Admissions, inspections, the trust boards, the hospital trust — and everything that gets announced at 4pm on a Friday, which is never a coincidence.
03 — THE COST OF AN EMPTY BENCH
What happened when nobody was in the council chamber
£41m
In the six years after the old paper closed, the council passed a 41 million pound leisure contract with no press present, and the first anyone heard was a leak. That is what an empty press bench costs.
It was not corruption and nobody has said it was. It was worse in an ordinary way: a long report, a thin summary, a vote at 9.40pm, and not one person in the room whose job was to ask the obvious question out loud. We have been in every meeting since. The questions are usually obvious. Somebody just has to be there to ask them.
04 — OWNERSHIP
Co-op ownership: one member, one vote
One member, one vote, regardless of how much you pay. Members elect two of the seven board seats and vote on any change to the editorial code.
The vote is flat
Six pounds a month and four pounds a month carry exactly the same weight, and so does a free membership taken out this morning.
Two of seven seats
Elected by members at the AGM, in public, with the minutes published. The other five are recruited for skills and can be voted out.
The code is yours
No change to the editorial code happens without a members' vote. Not a consultation. A vote, with a result we are bound by.
05 — HOW IT REACHES YOU
Print, email and the noticeboard
A weekly email, a free public noticeboard anyone can read without paying, and a printed edition on the first Thursday of the month delivered to members.
01
The weekly email
Thursday morning. Everything from the week, in reading order, with the planning deadlines at the top because they expire.
02
The noticeboard
Court lists, planning notices and council reports, free and open to everyone, no account, no paywall, no email required.
03
The printed edition
First Thursday of the month, through the door of every member, and left in libraries, GP waiting rooms and two chip shops.
06 — MEMBERSHIP
Membership, and the free tier that stays free
£6 a month, or £4 if that is a stretch and you say so. The court lists, planning notices and council reports stay free for everyone forever, because those are the bits that protect people.
FULL MEMBER
£6 a month
The vote, the monthly printed edition through your door, the weekly email, and the knowledge that a reporter is sitting in the chamber on a Wednesday night because you paid for the chair.
IF SIX IS A STRETCH
£4 a month
Same paper, same vote, same everything. You say so on the form, nobody asks why, and nobody is told. It is a box, not an application.
Free forever is not a trial
The court lists, the planning notices and the council reports never go behind anything. No counter, no "one article remaining", no email wall. If knowing that a hearing is on Tuesday protects somebody, charging them for it is the wrong way round.
07 — THE ASK
Join the co-op
Six pounds a month, or four if that is a stretch. One vote either way. It buys a reporter a seat in a room that has been empty for six years — and buys you the notes from it on Thursday morning.
Cancel in one click. No proprietor, no shareholders, no advertiser with a view about the leisure contract. 3,900 members and counting.
THE WARD · A REGISTERED COMMUNITY BENEFIT SOCIETY