The Teesside Gazette is to increase its roster of ultra-local contributors to 1,000 in the next year, building on the 400 it already has across 22 postcode-related sites.

Journalism.co.uk reports that the site gets around 150,000 unique monthly users from its hyper-local site alone and is seeking to make more money from it through advertising soon.

Gazette editor Darren Thwaites said there was a direct link between the quality of the printed newspaper and the quality of the local online operation.