THE BROMSGROVE Standard has been at the heart of our town’s community and surrounding areas’ in 2017, bringing you all the biggest stories first and leading campaigns to make things better.
As well as providing all the latest news in Bromsgrove we have also highlighted many issues, including traffic, dangerous junctions, planning and other political concerns.
We have also broken several exclusives in the last 12 months, such as Lidl expressing an interest in coming to the Bromsgrove Retail Park, the town’s first ever youth market, the first ever Food Festival and the possibility of Bromsgrove getting an M&S Food Hall. We also brought you the sad news that Bromsgrove’s Speeds Cycles shop would be closing its doors after more than a century in the town.
We have provided you the best coverage of all the main events, from the poignant Remembrance and Armistice Day commemorations to the celebratory Christmas lights switch-ons, business openings, job creations and, of course, Bromsgrove Carnival when the lorry floats returned to the town’s streets for the first time in several years.
As well as in print we have also covered many events on Facebook Live with the Armistice Day commemorations and Christmas lights switch-ons proving particularly popular. Both videos were well-viewed live and by thousands more after the events.
In the 52 weeks we have printed more than 2,800 stories in the Bromsgrove and Droitwich Standards, more than we have ever done before.
Online in Bromsgrove last year we managed to yield 1million website page views from January to December and this year we have doubled that with more than 2million web hits in the calendar year.
This year was a massive one for Droitwich with the return of salt production, using the town’s brine, for the first time in almost a century.
And it was an instant hit with Wychbold Salted Fudge, the salt itself and other products selling well as soon as they were unveiled.
Our sister paper The Droitwich Standard provided all the best coverage of the other big events in The Spa – from the big launch of the revamped High Street to the Remembrance commemorations, Christmas light switch-ons and all the festivals. Among those was the St Richard’s Festival, the Food and Drink Festival, Salt Fest and the town’s first ever Youth Festival.
And we have campaigned on numerous issues in Droitwich, such as the drive to get more defibrillators for the town centre and the successful campaign to get the Lido Park tennis courts revamped.
Online in Droitwich, we had 220,000 pageviews for our www.droitwichstandard.co.uk website in 2016 and in the 2017 calendar year that has already risen to more than 550,000.
We continue to provide several daily updates every day, as well as the weekly papers packed with all the latest news, sport and entertainment.
And we hope you will join us in 2018 and keep sending us your stories, contacting us about your issues so we can provide even better coverage next year.
A happy new year to all of our readers and contributors.
