The electric buses being powered by diesel and uncovered by an Aussie in Harrogate

Lachlan Leeming

By Lachlan Leeming, local democracy reporter in Harrogate

You get asked a lot of questions when you’re an Australian in the north of England..

‘What’s an Aussie doing up here?’ is probably the most common.

‘Do you watch Neighbours?’ and ‘Are there really poisonous snakes everywhere over there?’ usually follow close behind.

Luckily, all three have relatively simple answers.

What is more difficult is when someone poses: ‘What exactly do you do for a job?’

A local democracy reporter, in a pioneering initiative between the BBC and local media organisations, doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

But that’s the exact question I’ve tried to answer as succinctly as possible since I started at Harrogate in October.

An average day at work sees me spending as much time in the council chamber as the office.

The scope of the role is so refined that I’ve now got the chance to pour over every little detail of council happenings — something that was nearly impossible as a general news journalist.

It means we’re picking up stories we might have never seen before.

Stories that we’ve chased down include a cutting-edge fleet of electric buses, funded with a £2m government grant, being powered by a diesel generator.

Or comments by councillors in an overview and scrutiny committee about Harrogate Convention Centre — which previously would have gone unheard — becoming front page news.

Councillors as a whole have been hugely supportive of the role.

I think many see it as another front on which they can bring forward the issues of their constituents.

Yes, it may be the national news that make us red in the face and scream at the TV.

But what about the housing development that springs up behind the cricket oval where your kids play after school every day?

Or the sudden rise in parking costs in your town centre?

What of the closure of special education academies — working with the community’s most vulnerable kids — in your county?

That level of scrutiny, sadly, was one of the first things to go in a decade of shrinking newsrooms across the media world.

However, the birth of the LDR service has breathed new life into that space.

And on a personal note, it’s a buzz to see your byline abruptly pop up around the county — ranging from my host paper, the Harrogate Advertiser, its ‘big cousin’ the Yorkshire Post, the BBC itself, Stray FM — the list stretches on.

As a foreigner working in England’s picturesque north, it’s difficult to see someone coming in as more of an outsider — and it’s given me a unique view of British pride in their democratic systems.

Long may it continue.