The lovely Sarah Hartley, who sadly for us is not based in Manchester any more, has instead been beavering away at Guardian HQ training up three so called ‘beatbloggers’ to usher in the future of local journalism.

Yesterday Sarah announced that they will be hitting their beats in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Leeds as of next week with blogs to be launched in the first half of this year.

This is a really interesting project which the wider journalism community is watching with bated breath. Sarah describes them as ‘talented journalists’ so I for one can’t wait to read their hyper -local blogs.

On the subject of local journalism, I was chatting to the director of a local charity this week who was concerned that the local media didn’t seem interested in the great hands on work they do in the community with groups who generally don’t get a lot of good press.

Maybe hiring talented local bloggers is one way busy news organisations can penetrate deaper into the community they serve without adding massive overheads.

I really hope the bloggers can get onto their beats and into the lives of their readers and wish Sarah and her team lots of luck.