What is it?
Somerset Confidential® is a twice weekly newsletter focused on Somerset. It provides a free news update on Friday examining the more interesting stories of the week.
You won’t find any unaltered press releases masquerading as news items at Somerset Confidential®!
In addition to our Friday weekly news update, we usually deliver one extra piece each Monday (give or take bank holidays and other such interruptions of course!) where we need to delve much deeper into a particular issue.
This is what The i newspaper had to say about us: “Somerset Confidential covers local council meetings – and spats between councillors – with a vigour rarely seen in local press any more.”
A bit of history
Back in 2010 Andrew Lee founded The Leveller newspaper. This was a hard copy old fashioned newspaper. It grew from an initial print run of 1,000 to a paper with a circulation over 15,000 net of returns. James Garrett and Susannah Hickling became important contributors to the paper.
Then in February 2022 we discovered Substack, an online platform for delivering newsletters. And in March that year we took the plunge. Initially called Leveller Confidential, in April 2023, following a consultation with our readers we changed the name to Somerset Confidential.
The new name came in handy when in February 2024 we sold The Leveller to new owners. It meant we could keep the Substack newsletter out of the deal.
Since then Andrew Lee, James Garrett and Susannah Hickling have provided the stories in the format so many of you have taken up.
Somerset Confidential® is set up to offer the same high standards and dedicated reporting on Somerset. As always our work hinges on three key pillars:
Questioning
Investigating
Telling truth to power
Who we are
Somerset Confidential® articles are written by our editor, Andrew Lee, freelance reporter at large, James Garrett and Susannah Hickling who writes medical related stories for us.
Andrew Lee is our editor and as noted above was previously founding editor at The Leveller. Before becoming a journalist he had a background in finance, a former Chartered Accountant who had been involved in a number of start up projects including Cambridge based Cyan Connode plc and the Library House.
James Garrett has a long track record in local journalism. Today a freelance contributor whose pieces have appeared in The Independent and Private Eye to name but two, is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster with more than 40 years' experience in delivering high-quality, innovative factual programming and investigative reporting for print, broadcast and online media.
Susannah is a freelance journalist whose health investigations have twice won awards from the Guild of Health Writers. Her articles have been published in a wide range of publications, including The Times, The Observer, The Guardian, Reader’s Digest, Saga and FT Weekend. She was previously deputy editor of UK Reader’s Digest, for which she more recently wrote a monthly health column.
What all our writers have in common, is a track record of championing Somerset and bringing to light Somerset stories.
Why?
The added benefit of the online format is that we can deliver news more frequently, especially time sensitive stories, direct to your inbox.
But who wants news reports interrupted by pop up ads? Most news websites are unreadable and the experience is not an enjoyable one.
Substack offers an alternative platform. Lots of writing, lots of journalism and no ads.
All good but to survive and thrive we need an income stream and that is where you come in…..
Subscribe
We offer two types of subscription. You can get the regular weekly newsletter free, simply by taking up the free subscription offer. It is a good chance to sample what we do. It also means we can demonstrate a readership which is of value to us when getting comments and information from those in authority.
They take more notice of bigger numbers….
However we’d also like to persuade you to consider a paid subscription. This is what keeps us in business and keeps us going.
If you go for the paid subscription you will get:
A minimum of 45 “specials” every year.
The right to comment on all of our articles
Access to the whole back catalogue of material
And all for a bargain £30 a year. That’s around 58p a week - the price of a cheap loaf of bread….
Go on - give it a go!
Join our community
We love Somerset and through our news channel aim to build a community of like minded people to share in the news and the joys of living in such a beautiful county.
