About

The Surrey Post is for people who want a new kind of local news and who don't have the patience for pop-up ads and stories based on clickbait or social media gossip.

We publish high-quality, independent journalism focused on the county of Surrey. Our articles and email newsletter will dig into important issues in Surrey every week, covering politics, government, culture and crime. Every article will be carefully researched and written, and will give you the context you need to understand what’s really going on.

All you need to do is join our free mailing list below to start getting our weekly briefing in your inbox, full of important local news and rigorous reporting.

You won't find any clickbait or nonsense in our pages, and we will prioritise in-depth and balanced reporting, without political agenda. We also won't do annoying or excessive advertising, and our journalism will always be free to read.

Our business model is inspired by that already used by the likes of Mill Media and The Ferret which provide high quality local journalism in the belief that when the quality is good then people are willing to pay for it.

We will shortly be launching a subscription service to allow people to voluntarily support our journalism with a small monthly financial contribution, and we will combine this with restrained commercial advertising, always carefully positioned to not interfere with the reading experience, to supplement our income from subscribers. Growing our subscribers will take time, but in the long run it will give us the ability to provide high quality journalism based on what our readers want.

Every week we will pick a few local stories that we think really matter, and then dig into them properly, writing in-depth articles to publish on our website, and to send to our mailing list in a carefully curated weekly email.

We hope to expand our offerings over time as a we grow, but to start with we will focusing on government and politics within Surrey, because we believe an informed public is essential to democracy. As our resources allow we will include coverage of culture, community, and social affairs news within Surrey, and in the medium-term we aspire to having regular coverage of those issues, as well as local sport.

Our first articles include a detailed look at the budget crisis facing Surrey Police, including its implications for council tax, and another on the extraordinary life of Surrey's Ethel Smyth, a queer icon, one of Britain's greatest composers, a writer, and a suffragette.

So if you like the sound of quality, thoughtful journalism for Surrey, please bookmark our website and join our mailing list:

Our Story

We launched as an independent publication in August 2025 and are run by an editorial collective. Our primary founder, who goes by the pseudonym 'Guildford Womble' (see explanation below), was inspired by the increasing number of new independent publications pioneering a new model for local journalism based on the belief that people are willing to pay for local news as long as it isn't based on shallow clickbait and made unreadable through adverts.

These publications have proven that high quality journalism can and will pay for itself, provided it is based on sustainable growth and a willingness to ask members of the public to pay small monthly subscriptions to keep it going.

The reason we believe this model is needed in Surrey is because traditional local news has been gutted by commercial owners, with in-depth reporting too often replaced with generic, by-the-numbers clickbait to try to bring in advertising revenue for the lowest possible cost in wages. This leaves an important gap in the market and, although there are some honourable examples of local news blogs and sites trying to fill the gap on a town by town basis, there is no publication focused on providing consistent county-wide reporting on the real stories.

We hope that our model, of publishing a small number of high quality articles each week while asking our readers to voluntarily support us through a monthly subscription, will enable us to maintain a focus on the kind of journalism that is required for a well-informed public and a healthy democracy.

Our mission starts, but does not end with, local government and politics, where decisions get made every week which impact our lives but which most people are left in the dark about. We will be carefully reading the agendas for local government committee meetings, watching webcasts, and digging into issues to find out the real background and reasons behind the choices made by those who govern us. This is the sort of patient, slow journalism which just does not happen at the county level anymore, leaving all of us worse off as decisions and debates take place without public knowledge or scrutiny.

But we are also interested in the human stories of life across our county. Be it forgotten figures from the past, the issues happening in our communities, the stories of people at the sharp end of the housing crisis, or lighter subjects like new cultural productions or charity projects, we want to do justice to the rich tapestry that makes up modern Surrey.

Our goals are ambitious, and it will take us time to grow our team to achieve them, but we believe this is an endeavour worth attempting. And with your support we know we can succeed.

Who is 'Guildford Womble'?

Our primary founder works a day job as a civil servant and is therefore required to be politically impartial as part of their terms of employment. While The Surrey Post will not be getting involved in the cut and thrust of politics on any particular side, the best way to avoid even the hint of political partiality by a civil servant is to write under a pseudonym so as to maintain a degree of separation between their professional identity as a civil servant and their personal identity as a writer and journalist.

'Guildford Womble' was chosen both because the initials of the name, GW, match those of their real name, and also because they wished to pay tribute to the recycling mascot of Surrey's county town.