A hyperlocal website founder who once updated a missing person story from the top of a mountain in Madeira has celebrated ten years of dedicating himself to what he said is “at its centre community journalism”.

Your Thurrock editor Michael Casey encouraged others to “have a go” at starting their own hyperlocal sites as he hailed the growth of independent news over the past decade.

Casey, a member of the advisory board for the Independent Community News Network based at Cardiff University, praised hyperlocals up and down the country from On The Wight to the Edinburgh Reporter and said “it’s good to see the growth in independent news”.