West Leeds Dispatch is at the heart of its communities in the west of the city – but the idea to set up the site was actually ‘born’ in London – at the British Library, of all places.
That was the setting for the Talk About Local Unconference, which brought together owners of hyperlocal/community news operations from across the country and was held on Saturday 28 February, 2015.
Former Guardian journalist and lecturer John Baron, who lives in Farnley, went down to the unconference alongside Jeremy Morton, who runs South Leeds Life, not expecting to come back with a new voluntary role as an editor!
Another West Leeds resident, Emma Bearman from Armley, had also independently travelled down to London.
And as the day progressed the two of them found themselves talking about a new venture – a hyperlocal news site which would give people in West Leeds a voice and keep communities better connected to local groups, events and campaigns.
We felt West Leeds needed something to galvanise the community and empower them with a voice that might not otherwise be heard.
The site soft launched on 5 May, 2015 at 8.57pm with its first article, a preview of the 2015 General Election in Pudsey and Leeds West constituencies. We were actually called West Leeds Life at the time.
People-powered media
A Leeds lunch followed with other publishers and Talk About Local and on a sultry summer’s night on 1 July we held a public meeting at Bramley Lawn Social Centre to stimulate wider interest in our fledgling website.
What a fabulous and diverse group we had attending! They ranged from people who’d helped to get a war memorial in Bramley and who regularly clean up war graves in an overgrown cemetery, to someone who wanted to set up a new junior football team and a lady who wanted to set up an ‘Incredible Bramley’ foraging group.
We also heard from Gael at Creative Calverley, a group which aimed to bring people together to have fun and build a stronger sense of “community”, and from a man who was running an event for charity.
People signed up as contributors, came up with story ideas and proposals for regular columns, signed up for free community reporter training courses and expressed an interest in being part of a steering committee to help develop our project. It was an incredibly inspiring evening, with so much energy and positivity in the room!
Attendees also helped choose a new name for us, and voted for ‘West Leeds Dispatch‘.
It was in August 2015 that we re-named ourselves Dispatch and launched a new-look website. And we’ve been going strong ever since!
We now have a community led board to provide strategic direction and help develop the project.
We’ve had grants to train up community reporters of all backgrounds from across West Leeds (we have 90+ on a Facebook group) and our 16-page tabloid newspaper is printed regularly, with a 5,000-copy print run.
We’re truly community led, run and written by West Leeds residents, for West Leeds residents. We also have a successful supporters’ scheme, where readers can also support us financially each month.
We also hold weekly community drop ins at our community newsroom, where people can meet us for a chat over a cuppa, and also hold regular community quiz nights.
In June 2021 our ongoing quest for sustainability was given a major boost when we were given £112,000 from the National Lottery’s Reaching Communities arm over three years to employ our editor part-time and recruit a commercial person to help raise money to help us become more sustainable. We trained even more community reporters and produced more print editions.
We run weekly common city reporter drop ins, and have covered major community issues, covered council meetings and highighted council decisions. We’ve also focused on connecting people to local events, groups and activities, encouraging them to be more active in their communities.
Our community reporters are empowered to provide local communities with a much-needed voice.
And in January 2025 we received a further three years’ funding from the National Lottery to continue our work with community reporters in West Leeds and continue to tell the story of our communities up to December 2027.
Watch this space!
We always love to hear from you, and welcome people getting involved with WLD, Please don’t hesitate to drop us a line on news@westleedsdispatch.com.