Collapse of local media leaves us all in the dark

UK's dwindling oversight of local government stems from hollowing out of local news - which may have to find its own fix

• Lawyers raise alarm at struggle to tackle UK local government corruption

This week a damning review found that one of the highest-profile government-backed regeneration schemes in Britain, Teesworks in the north-east, had a culture of excessive confidentiality" that meant it was hard to tell if it was providing value for money.

That anyone has heard about it at all is in large part down to the dogged reporting of Private Eye's Richard Brooks, who published his first story about it in March 2022. But it should have been looked at - by a local newspaper - earlier than that, he reckons. Local journalists should have been scrutinising the mayoral authority and development corporation years before," he says. But they don't have the resources, and that turns into a lack of ability - and will - to scrutinise."