A group of graduates who set up a hyperlocal news website in response to the lack of journalism jobs available have now launched a free iPhone app.

The Lincolnite was started earlier this year by journalism graduates Elizabeth Fish and Daniel Ionescu with web tech graduate Chris Brandrick, who all attended the University of Lincoln.

And the team claim their app, which includes traffic updates, a photo gallery and a tip-off page for incidents happening in the city, is the first local news one for Lincoln.

Elizabeth said it was created using an online app maker which the graduates tweaked and coded further themselves.

She said: “We are really happy with how the app has gone down with Lincolnites so far — we receive compliments regularly about it, and people are using the tip-off page. We look forward to developing our mobile apps further.

“As for the website, we are continuing to do well, and reaching more unique hits each month. We recently launched our advertising part of the website, which has seen interest from several businesses as well as local councils.”

The team set up The Lincolnite after receiving a £5,000 business support package from organisation Enterprise Inc.