About Six Towns Daily

What we do

Six Towns Daily is an independent local news platform covering Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme. We publish community news, sport, events, crime updates, transport information, and everything else that matters to people living in the Potteries and North Staffordshire.

We believe local news should be accessible to everyone, not locked behind paywalls or buried under advertising. That's why we're completely free to read and completely ad-free. No adverts, no cookie banners asking you to accept tracking, no sponsored articles disguised as journalism.

Who we are

Six Towns Daily launched on 16 August 2026, founded and operated by Martin Pitchford, a local resident with a straightforward goal: give the six towns a news source they can trust.

Right now, we're operating as an independent sole trader. This keeps overheads practically at zero and lets us react instantly to local breaking news without layers of bureaucracy or commercial pressures. However, with over 5,000 views in our first four days, we're already looking at formalising into a corporate structure to handle our rapid growth.

The core platform is managed by Martin, supported by a network of local self-employed contributors and community volunteers who supply content. This keeps our news hyper-local, authentic, and fast. If something happens on your street, we want to know about it before anyone else.

Why ad-free?

We are strictly ad-free and paywall-free. This isn't a temporary launch strategy, it's a permanent commitment.

Local people trust us because we aren't clogging their screens with adverts, auto-playing videos, or cookie banners begging to track them. There are no adverts chasing you around the internet after you leave, no flashing banners, and no articles secretly written to please an advertiser. What you read is what we think is worth reporting, nothing more.

One thing you will occasionally see. Because we're funded by readers rather than advertisers, once you've read a fair way into a story you may get a small note at the bottom explaining that and inviting you to chip in. It isn't an advert, nobody pays us to show it, it never covers what you're reading, and you can close it with one tap. We'd rather ask you openly than quietly sell your attention to someone else.

This means we don't answer to corporations or media groups. We answer to you, the people of Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme.

Sponsorship, not advertising

Keeping a news site free and ad-free still costs money, so here's how we square that circle: local sponsorship. A single local business can sponsor the whole site, or one section of it, and in return we display a simple, clearly labelled credit that says the section or site is supported by them. That's it. One tasteful line, no adverts, no tracking.

This is very different from traditional online advertising, and the difference matters:

• One sponsor, not hundreds. A traditional ad network fills your screen with whatever pays the most that second. We have one sponsor per slot, chosen locally, and everyone sees the same thing.
• No tracking. Ad networks follow you across the web to target you. Our sponsor credits are just a link. We don't profile you, and we don't sell data, because we don't collect it in the first place.
• No influence on the news. A sponsor pays to have their name shown next to trusted local journalism. They get no say in what we cover or how we cover it, including stories about them.
• It stays local. The money comes from real businesses in Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme, and it goes straight back into reporting on the area they serve.

So a sponsor's support is what lets us keep the news free for you, without a single advert or paywall in sight. If you run a local business and like that idea, our media pack explains how it works.

How we're funded

Our funding comes from two honest, local sources: reader contributions and local sponsorship. Neither one puts anything between you and the news.

Reader support is completely optional. There is no obligation, and you will never see reduced content or locked articles if you don't contribute. Sponsorship comes from local businesses who pay for a clearly labelled credit, never for influence over what we publish.

Every penny from both goes directly toward keeping the site running: hosting, domain costs, and paying local contributors for their time. There are no shareholders, no investors, and no advertising networks taking a cut. Just readers and local businesses who believe local news matters.

Our next step: becoming a CIC

We're working toward registering Six Towns Daily as a Community Interest Company (CIC). A CIC is a type of company designed specifically for organisations that exist to benefit the community rather than to make private profit.

Registering as a CIC online costs around £115 to incorporate through Companies House, which includes the fee for the CIC regulator. On top of that there are the ongoing costs of running one properly: an annual community interest report, business banking, insurance, and a little help with the paperwork. That's what we're raising for.

Why a CIC and not an ordinary business? It comes down to a legal promise. A CIC has an asset lock, which means its assets and profits are legally tied to community benefit and can't be siphoned off to private owners or shareholders. It has to pass a community interest test and file a public report every year showing how it served the community. In short, it's a formal, legally binding commitment that this newsroom will always be run for the people it covers, not for profit. That independence is the whole point of Six Towns Daily, and becoming a CIC locks it in for good.

Our principles

• Free forever. Every article, every update, available to everyone.
• Ad-free forever. No banners, no adverts, no tracking pixels. Sponsor support is limited to a single clearly labelled credit.
• Nothing that blocks the news. We'll never put a paywall, a login, or a consent wall between you and a story. Our one reader-funding note can be closed with a tap and never covers the article.
• Never paid coverage. We don't sell articles. A sponsor's money buys a credit, never a story or a say in one.
• Community first. We cover what matters to local people, not what generates clicks.
• Independent. No media group ownership, no corporate interests.
• Transparent. We tell you exactly how we operate and where the money goes.

Get in touch

Got a story? Want to contribute? Just want to say hello? We'd love to hear from you.

General enquiries: hello@sixtownsdaily.co.uk
Martin Pitchford, Lead Editor: martinpitchford@sixtownsdaily.co.uk