Before we resume our usual erratic service after the holidays*, time for the usual end of year review.

Astonishingly, visits to NL continue to increase. I thought we had pretty much reached saturation – and thus a plateau – for what is a niche readership. Housing law is not exactly mainstream (even if some of us think it should be), but nonetheless the blog had about 524,000 views in 2014.

That is up from 421,650 in 2013 and 334,831 in 2012. I am, bluntly, amazed.

Still, so far no-one has offered us obscene amounts of money for the blog, or even vaguely indecent amounts, so we shall carry on as before. In 2014, that meant 171 posts (almost one every couple of days). 2015 could well be busier, as there are plenty of big cases to come through.

And the flip side of being read is that the blog gets a degree of influence (not a big amount, granted, but a bit). As well as being cited in various House of Commons Library briefing papers (including most recently, this second briefing paper on retaliatory eviction), the blog played a part in getting Barnet Council to reverse its proposals on allocation priority for victims of domestic violence. We have also had roles in various national print and broadcast media stories. Of course, all that this means is that everyone should have a housing lawyer with them at all times, just in case. Despite the best efforts of the MoJ and the LAA, we intend to continue to be here.

(*Yes, great thanks. 1000 miles on the motorway in total, a narrow escape from food poisoning by thankfully picking the right pre-Christmas prawn, and an epic Grail style quest for cheese. Roll on work…).