Dear Consett readers,

Last month online we published a piece from local MP Richard Holden regarding the new community hospital funding at Shotley Bridge, after the article was shared to our social media we had many of our readers give us feedback about the lack of balance between the different political parties in our publication. You spoke, we listened. We reached out to all the candidates/parties who were up for election back in December to request content from them. Some of those candidates/parties got back to us, some didn’t. We’ll continue to reach out to the ones who didn’t, but we’re delighted to have received content from the Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems, and one of the Independent candidates (see pages 10-11).

We’re often criticised for publishing content from political parties, from all sides of the political spectrum. The truth is, Consett Magazine was created to give the local community a voice. A voice for its people, it’s businesses, it’s local organisations, charities, and yes, even political parties.

In recent months, we’ve published content from North West Durham‘s elected member of parliament Richard Holden MP and from The Conservatives. His team simply got in touch with us and sent across press releases and content about what they are up to and what’s going on in the community. And you can do the same.

Unlike many larger media companies, we do not have huge budgets for numerous investigative journalists, we rely almost exclusively on contributions from wonderful local people who want to have their say. The Consett Magazine team is most proud of helping local charities to get their message out to people in DH8 and we’ve helped hundreds of local good causes over the years.

Our team has tirelessly reached out to thousands of local people and organisations to take up the opportunity to contribute to the magazine, focusing on all the positive things happening in our great town, favouring content that is educational, entertaining, and/or informative.

For over eight years we’ve encouraged ANYONE and EVERYONE to share their story (in 95 monthly editions of the print and online). You’ll find us requesting content in the print editions and also see a link to submit content on every page of the consettmagazine.com website.

SO PLEASE DO GET INVOLVED, submit your story online: fireflymagazines.com/submit-content (or encourage your friends and family to also get involved).

A special thanks to businesses/advertisers (advertising starts at just £39 a month ) who’ve supported the magazine over the years, without your support we certainly would not have been able to publish this free monthly publication for almost 100 editions without you. We really can’t say how important your financial contribution has impacted our ability to print, distribute and share positive local news in Consett. You’ve helped us print, publish and distribute 18,800,000+ pages of positive local news for free.

Yours sincerely, Barry Kirkham, Marco Elsy, The Firefly Magazines team, Consett Magazine contributors, and everyone who’s been involved over the years.

PS – Did you know Consett Magazine was name-dropped in parliament on October 5th 2020? It was in regards to our coverage of Shotley Bridge Community Hospital. You can see the video on our Facebook page, under “videos”.