OVER the course of 2020, more people have visited the Malvern Observer website than ever before and we have had more than double the number page views.
From January 1 to now, almost 72,000 have read stories on our site – amounting to more than 420,000 views – last year the figure was 193,000.
As you can imagine, Coronavirus articles dominated the top stories – from case numbers to information about the community support, furlough scheme and Eat Out to Help Out.
Among the positive Covid stories was one about an Upton-upon-Severn firm’s revolutionary Covid-19 antibodies test which was billed as ‘game changer’.
There was great news in August when several new businesses opened their doors in Malvern Town Centre.
Likewise, many of you welcomed the news discount supermarket giant Aldi was planning to build its first store in Great Malvern.
Crime stories proved extremely popular and among the best-read was the Malvern men jailed over the £100,000 county lines drug network.
Flooding made the news again this year, most notably a multi-million pound investment by the Government for flood defences for Tenbury Wells and the Severn Valley.
At the start of this month the biggest story was the announcement that Malvern Hills College was set to be closed and sold off and the formation of a ‘Save Our Students Task Force’ in a bid to maintain some provision in the district.
The best-read story – across all of our papers in Worcestershire and Warwickshire – was on our Droitwich Standard website – revealing the permanent closure of the Chateau Impney Hotel in April.
We want to thank all of you – our readers – for your support over the past 12 months and wish you a happy and healthy new year.
We look forward to bringing you all the latest news, sport, lifestyle and entertainment in what will hopefully be a brighter 2021.
