Press Release: August 7th 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Lays to Rest One Legacy of Last Year’s Riots The enthusiastic response to the Olympic Torch Relay took many people by surprise and this fervour was reflected on local community web sites which saw a massive surge in visits as the relay hit their part of town. Increasingly, it is this kind of media where people look first for breaking news in their area. For many they were the initial port of call to find out who was carrying the torch down their streets and when and where they would get a chance to see the procession. In many cases the traffic on these sites during the relay surpassed records set last year during the riots. On the day the torch got to Wimbledon the number of visitors to the local website www.WimbledonSW19.com rose exponentially, well above previous record levels. The site’s editor Sue Choularton, is also a games volunteer so the intensity of interest was not a total surprise to her. Sue said: "My Olympic volunteer work has sent me to various locations across London and the atmosphere at all of them has been amazing. The torch relay has created the same excitement and has built up a real community spirit. It was fantastic to see the delight on everyone's faces when Sue Barker rounded the corner carrying the Olympic flame." The trend was repeated in Shepherd's Bush where Sir Bruce Forsyth lifted the torch at the BBC in White City, and in Fulham which had the triple benefit of the torch relay on both road and river as well as being on the route for the men's and women's cycling road race. The number of visitors to the sites soared. The editor of www.FulhamSW6.com, Sheila Prophet said, "Until the torch relay came many people felt that this was the Games where West London got the traffic and East London got the spectacle but attitudes changed overnight". And in Chiswick where crowds flocked to watch the torch as it was carried along the river on the Gloriana, www.ChiswickW4.com, which is believed to be already the largest of its kind in the country, saw its membership break through the 20,000 level that same week. The massive impact of the torch relay was timely because prior to that many of these web sites were reflecting growing widespread resentment against the games. The traffic and travel conditions in the build up to the games caused a lot of anxiety. The closure of the Hammersmith Flyover and the elevated section of the M4 combined the closure of lanes and re-phasing of traffic lights brought mayhem to local high streets. Now the focus for these ‘hyperlocal’ sites is to identify connections, even the most tangential, with successful members of Team GB. Whilst there may be some recollection of the events of last summer at the same time, suddenly it all seems to have happened a lot longer than a year ago.
NOTES TO EDITORS WimbledonSW19.com has been running since 2010. Previously on a typical day it would receive between 100-200 visits but on the day of the relay there were over 1600 visits to the site. FulhamSW6.com has been running since 2009. Site editor Sheila Prophet has been a journalist for over 20 years and has worked for the Sunday Mirror and the News of the World. ChiswickW4.com is believed to be the country’s largest and most commercially successful hyperlocal site with revenues in six figures annually. It currently has over 20,000 registered members and puts out an e-mail newsletter each week which goes out to over 15,000 subscribers. All these sites are part of the Neighbour Net group of local community web sites which is believed to be the largest network of its kind in the U.K. with over 37,000 registered members. For further comment on WimbledonSW19.com call Sue Choularton on 07979 495508 or at editor@wimbledonsw19.com. For further comment on FulhamSW6.com call Sheila Prophet on 07825 685549 or at editor@fulhamsw6.com. For information about Neighbour Net call Sean Kelly on 020 8994 7888.
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