I have been told that there must be an end of year round up for the blog. But, before I get to the figures, here is a soundtrack.
NL, it has to be said, seems to be prospering in bad times (not that we make any money from it, not at all. The reverse in fact.)
We saw 421,563 visits in 2013, up nearly some 90,000 from 334,831 in 2012, and that was an average of 1,156 visits per day. Total visits since the blog began are just over 2 million. We posted 182 entries over the year (not including this one), being pretty much a post every two days, or 0.4986 posts per day. Granted, we had a late rush over the holidays, but it still counts!
The end of the year saw us welcome a new contributor, CAJ, who got off to a great start. The weary old lags making up the rest of the team have been warned, myself included.
The rather odd thing about 2013 as far as the blog is concerned is that we have had to acknowledge that we have actually become an institution. We have been told tales of District Judges being referred to our write ups, of the occasional High Court Judge checking out their reviews. We have been told how widely read the blog is in the housing law sector. I must confess to being a little troubled by this. For myself at least, when I write up a case, I aim to get the decision and reasons down accurately, but the rest is simply my opinion. I think the same is true for the other NL writers. And sometimes, we are playful, opinionated, speculative or argumentative. None of this should be taken as anything more than that.
Also, we have been sadly late with our write ups. The trouble is, we are all busy, actually doing the legal stuff, or for some of us, also the academic stuff. We promise not to get quite so behind again, but I’m not sure we are quite ready to become institutionalised.
Plans for 2014? No, no plans. Just keep on with what we do, with new people joining the team. It is going to be an interesting year for housing law, and we will be part of it. Oh, and as it is new years eve, the DCLG have released their fresh allocations guidance. Happy new year!