This is the first in what will be a regular feature rounding up some of the news stories that caught our eye this week.
(Don’t worry, no Brexit news.)
The kind of stories we’re talking about are anything that throws a spotlight on what people are doing differently or brilliantly in the worlds or arts, culture and heritage – or that covers something going on in Herefordshire that might affect people interested in those industries.
Some of those stories will be local, some will be national, and some might be international. Occasionally it might just be a really cool profile we liked.
But for the most part we’ll pick out three-to-five things that are going to have some kind of impact on creative people in the county. If you’ve got any suggestions, send us the links to hello@the-shire.co.uk , or tag us on Insta (@theshire_hfds).
1. Revealed: The Thousands Of Public Spaces Lost To The Council Funding Crisis
The Bureau Of Investigative Journalism/ HuffPost UK
In an extensive investigative project, the BIJ and HuffPost look at the impact of austerity on local facilities. And it's not good. Local Council's have sold off more than £9bn-worth of libraries, community centres and playgrounds - important public spaces - to make up for the shortfall in government funding.
2. Bike Share Scheme Launches in City This Summer
Hereford Times
This one's exciting. This summer Hereford's getting a bike share scheme - Beryl Bikes - which will let you pick up one of the nifty lime green bikes, unlock it using an app on your smartphone, and ride it around for as long as you want, charging your bank card at the end of the ride.
You'll have probably heard of/used the Boris Bikes in London, or the many, many other versions in Literally Every Major European City - a nice detail with the Beryls is that you don't have to mess around with the notoriously tricky docking bays, you'll just have to leave the bike in one of the several designated areas in town when you're done.
We're talking to some cyclists this week about what it'll mean for the city, but you can get the basics from the HT report.
3. Turning disused buildings in to artists' studios
BBC
The Beeb's business reporter Mary-Ann Russon looks at how a group of artists in London formed a non-profit and used the city's approach to 'guardianship' to take abandoned buildings and actually use them for something - affordable studio space. The piece features a number of examples of other projects across the UK, doing a whole range of innovative things with unused space - and some pics of East London Artists looking very East London about things.
But the timing's interesting given Herefordshire Council just announced it's moving ahead with a regeneration project at an old munitions factory in Rotherwas.
4. Netflix lanches new campaign celebrating inclusivity and diversity
It's Nice That
We've been talking about Netflix a lot in the office this week. The brilliant Borderlines Film Festival launched it's 2019 programme last weekend - and as part of our coverage we spoke Simon Nicholls at the Courtyard about why the festival wouldn't be screening Netflix's Oscar-winner Roma. It was an interesting chat that touched on what the rise of streaming could mean for local cinemas (you can read it here). This story looks at Netflix's Make Room campaign to bring more diverse voices in to the writing process, the editing suite and production meetings.
That's it for now. Get in touch if you read anything you think should be on next week's list - and buy newspapers.