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Facebook campaign seeds Welshpool news website

By Dominic Ponsford

Two former regional newspaper executives have launched a new community website for Welshpool.

Former North Wales Newspapers editor-in-chief Graham Breeze took redundancy two years ago and since then has been working as a media consultant. He has launched www.mywelshpool.co.uk with former sports editor of the NWM-owned Powys County Times, David Williams – who left the title ten years ago to move into PR.

The pair launched their site after testing the water with a Facebook group called the Welshpool Dictionary, which aimed to collate particular sayings from the area. It has attracted 2,000 members and now acts as a marketing tool for the new local news website.

According to Breeze, www.mywelshpool.co.uk attracted some 20,000 ‘hits’ in the first few days after launch last week.

The site is staffed by Breeze and Williams, who are working part-time on it, and aims to provide free news, sport, business, features and community announcements for the market town on the Welsh border, and for its surrounding communities. It has a target audience of 25,000 local residents.

Breeze said: ‘The website is not a competitor for any of the current media serving the needs of Welshpool and the surrounding area.

‘There is a real need for the community to have access to instant information and that is what we will aim to achieve.

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‘We have been particularly encouraged by the response from the business sector who have identified that a website like this can provide excellent value-for-money as we are talking directly to their next customers.”

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