The UK's most up-to-date social housing and public sector news website
Roving reporters
Other Housing stories
- Pickles blasts prayers ban ruling - 'worship is hard-fought British liberty'
- Fact or Fiction? Tower blocks
- Council wrapped over revealing tenants' 'social housing status'
- Crowded Oxford shelter lets rough sleepers use floor
- Private landlord fined for allowing tenants to live in 'hell-hole' home
Advertisement
Residents of an estate in the West Midlands are making their own headlines thanks to the launch of a community newspaper.
Walsall’s Beechdale Estate, the childhood home of Slade’s Noddy Holder, has produced The Noize, named after the glam rock anthem ‘Cum on Feel the Noize’.
Leading the project is Beechdale Community Housing Association (BCHA), a registered social landlord, working with volunteers from the estate.
An eight page taster edition of The Noize will be delivered to the 2,500 households on the estate next week by the husband of a BCHA member of staff.
The hope is to then assemble a team of resident volunteers to write articles, take photos and deliver the paper in time for a December launch, although recruitment will be ongoing.
A 12 page edition of The Noize will be produced at Christmas and once a month thereafter.
The full colour publication has already generated interest on the estate, with the local vicar and his wife, the football club and secondary school among those to have supplied a story for the taster edition.
Young people who attend dance and sport sessions on the estate also feature in the newspaper, alongside Olympic gold medallist Mark Lewis-Francis. The athlete, of nearby Darlaston in the borough of Walsall, took part in coaching sessions with the youngsters during the summer holiday.
June Moriarty, chief executive of the housing association, said it was an exciting project.
“We have high hopes for The Noize, not only as a way of communicating our messages to residents but also to help unite the community and play a part in producing a newspaper we think will reflect the personality of the estate and the people who live here.
“We don’t want it to be a dry, information pack, we are very keen for it to be fun, interesting, inspirational and real. By this we mean full of all elements of the community – good stories and bad, if they are current and of interest.”
The newspaper is appealing for residents to take on the roles of roving reporter, sports correspondent, photographer and gardening columnist, to name but a few.
