Good afternoon {{first_name | there}},

Something big is happening to how Hertfordshire is run, and it changes how we serve you.

By April 2028, the ten district and borough councils plus the county council are being replaced by four new unitary authorities. It is the biggest shake-up to local government in this county in fifty years, and it decides who controls your bins, your roads, your planning, your social care, and billions of pounds of public money.

So Hertstown is changing to meet the moment.

From now on, Hertstown is a power and accountability brief.

We will follow the reorganisation as it happens and hold the new authorities to account: the mayoral authority, policing, the NHS, and every major decision made in your name as the four unitaries take shape. Every councillor in the county already reads Hertstown. Now we are turning that reach into scrutiny.

If you care about who holds power in Hertfordshire and how they use it, this is where you will find it.

Here is the honest part. As Hertstown moves up to the county level, it will stop carrying the street-level local news and the what's-on listings for individual towns.

If you live in Eastern Hertfordshire, we already have a better home for that: Broxtown.

Broxtown is our local title for the new Eastern Hertfordshire footprint. That covers Broxbourne, Hoddesdon, Cheshunt, Waltham Cross, Goffs Oak, Cuffley, Hertford, Ware, Bishop's Stortford, Sawbridgeworth, Buntingford, Royston and the surrounding wards. Local news, planning applications, roadworks, jobs, and events for your area, every Tuesday.

So here is the one thing to do today. Tell us where you live, and we will make sure you are on the right newsletter from now on. One tap, that is it.

If you already know you want Broxtown, you can jump straight in here:

Subscribe to Broxtown → Link

It takes twenty seconds, it is free, and it means you will not miss a thing happening on your doorstep.

You do not need to do anything to keep reading Hertstown. If you want the county-wide power brief, you are already subscribed. The poll above just makes sure your local news lands in the right place. Tap Eastern Hertfordshire and we will point you to Broxtown. Plenty of you will want both.

And if your local area is elsewhere in the county, tap that option anyway. We do not have a local title for your patch yet, so we will add you to the waiting list and build it if enough of you are there. You will hear from us the moment it happens.

Thank you for reading, and for trusting us with your inbox. The county is being redrawn. We are going to make sure you can see exactly who is doing the redrawing, and where the power ends up.

Have questions or suggestions to improve our newsletter? Got a story to share? Email us at [email protected].

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Wishing you a fantastic rest of your day!

Cheers,
Editor-in-chief | Emeka Ogbonnaya

P.S. Want to sponsor our newsletter? Email us at [email protected]