TCP Membership

Tottenham Community Press is not your regular media initiative. Behind the paper is a small team, dedicated to publishing community news.

Here at Social Spider CIC we publish four community newspapers written by and for local people in Tottenham, as well as our other locations: Waltham Forest, Enfield and Clerkenwell.

We are passionate about keeping local journalism alive by covering local stories mostly ignored by the corporate media. We also help others by sharing our best practice of how to set up community newspapers across the UK. On top of this, we conduct research into social investment, mental health, social enterprise business models and more.

We believe community newspapers are the reflections of their communities. Our readers often talk to us about long closed publications that used to cover their area and how unfortunate it is that they have disappeared. Well, the reason is simple. Making newspapers is expensive. Advertisers are turning to social media or cheaper publications mostly run by larger corporations, who often place more adverts into their papers than content.

Our newspapers are about relevant content, with a majority of the paper always being news. We are funded by advertising, membership, and occasional small pots of grant funding. We are not-for-profit, and all our income goes towards the continuous printing of your monthly news.

At Social Spider CIC, we believe that our communities deserve media that reflects their lives. We think it is important for people to be informed about what is happening near them. Our four papers: Tottenham Community Press, Waltham Forest Echo, Enfield Dispatch and our newest publication, EC1 Echo are free, have a distribution of around 10,000 hard copies each, and are also available to download from our websites. It is hard to make a newspaper and keep it financially sustainable, but we love doing it.

The average cost per issue of Tottenham Community Press is around £3,900 but our current monthly income is often as little as half that.

This leaves a gap that has to be covered by income from our social enterprise’s research and consultancy work. This model has enabled us to get the paper up-and-running but it can’t continue indefinitely.

That’s why we need help from readers who value our work and recognise the need for quality, independent local journalism.

Click here for details of how to become a TCP member.