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Cumbria group rolls out new hyperlocal sites

The Cumbrian News Group has become the latest regional publisher to roll out “hyperlocal” community websites covering towns around its patch.

Thirteen interactive hyperlocal sites have gone live in the county so far with more set to be unveiled over the coming weeks.

As well as featuring relevant news stories and pictures from the CN Group’s newspapers, such as the Cumberland News and Whitehaven News, the sites also allow users to create their own pages and add content.

The first of the series, Maryportlocal, was launched in July and prompted local police and doctors to contact the CN Group to ask about setting up their own pages.

Nick Turner, CN Group head of digital content development, said: “In common with other newspaper publishers we are looking at our offerings to local communities and the way we have approached it is with a collection of standalone community sites.

“An interesting feature of the sites is that we are using our new content management system, Polopoly, to allow community groups to login and update their own news.”

The sites could soon feature Polish content after the idea was suggested at a meeting in the town organised by the CN Group. Shops and small local businesses have also been advertising on the sites.

More sites are due to go live this month and the publisher is inviting readers to suggest other locations which could be covered by similar sites.