The Alty Post is an independent news and information site for Altrincham, Sale and the rest of Trafford. We work from documents, we link to them, and we are not connected to the council or to anybody we write about.
The name, and the patch
Alty is what the town gets called locally, so that is what we called the site. The patch is Altrincham first, with Hale, Hale Barns, Bowdon, Timperley, Broadheath and Dunham Massey around it, then Sale, Ashton-on-Mersey, Sale Moor and Brooklands, and the Manchester-facing north of the borough: Stretford, Old Trafford, Trafford Park, Urmston, Flixton, Davyhulme, Partington and Carrington. The borough takes its name from that northern end even though the towns down here are where most readers are, and we cover both halves rather than pretending the borough stops at the Mersey.
What we publish
Reporting built from the public record, and reference pages that answer the questions people search for in a hurry. The record means Trafford Council’s planning register and committee papers, licensing notices, police.uk crime data, sold prices from HM Land Registry, Food Standards Agency hygiene ratings, Environment Agency flood warnings for the Mersey and the Bollin, and company filings in The Gazette. The reference pages mean bins, parking and council tax bands, checked against what the council itself publishes.
How we work
Every fact is tied to a named source and linked, so you can check the original instead of trusting us. Where a record is unclear we say so. We use software to help watch the sources and draft routine updates, which is what lets a small independent site keep pace with a borough of 241,000 people, but nothing is invented and anything sensitive is checked by a person before publication.
Tips and corrections
If something is happening near you, or we have a detail wrong, email hello@altypost.co.uk. Tips are treated in confidence. Corrections go up quickly and are noted on the page.
The Alty Post is part of the GOB Media Group.