The city of Manchester – the third largest in England, and base of SEO Manchester company Lakestar Media – is to get a new hyper-local community website.

The team behind the new site, named ‘Inside the M60’ after the motorway which encircles the city, say they believe there is a need for it because of the “failures of local journalism”.

It is the work of freelance journalists Nigel Barlow and Louise Bolotin and will cover news stories and events from Manchester and the surrounding area.

Nigel spent 20 years as an accountant before deciding upon a career change while Louise is a former editor of commodities newsletter The Public Ledger and has contributed to a wide variety of publications including UK national newspaper the Guardian – which has its roots in Manchester – and women’s magazines.

Last year, MEN Media, the publisher of the daily city newspaper the Manchester Evening News and 20 other weekly titles covering towns around the city and farther afield into Lancashire, closed its regional offices and moved all its journalists, advertising and production staff into offices in Manchester city centre.

Since then, the lease has expired on those premises, and the staff are once again being moved, to premises in Oldham, a town seven miles north-east of the centre of Manchester.

Announcing Inside the M60, Nigel Barlow told press news website Hold The Front Page: “It isn’t just going to be blog and we are looking at other platforms beside digital, but initially it will be on a hosted WordPress site.

Nigel commented: “Inside the M60 will be…..giving a voice to the opinions of the disenfranchised community.

“We aim to launch in time to cover the local and national elections in Manchester (which are likely to take place in May). It will use a range of income generation streams of which advertising will be one.”

Nigel has announced details of the site on his own blog

On it, he said: ”Inside the M60 will fill a niche created by the failures of local journalism, taking advantage of the low entry and running costs of today’s media platforms and fully utilising the tools of modern journalism.

“It will address the issues of concern to the general population of the city, scrutinising the policies of local government and other public and private bodies within the city but also unafraid to tackle even the smallest issues that affect the population of Greater Manchester.”

He described Manchester as a city where “the poorest communities live almost within shouting distance of the bright lights and investment of the city centre and yet have little or nothing in common with it.

“At the same time, technology has become alien to them and they are in danger of being on the wrong side of an increasing digital divide.”