The Guardian has appointed three bloggers to its new experimental Guardian Local initiative.

Tom Allan, Hannah Waldram and John Baron have been appointed to cover the cities of Edinburgh, Cardiff and Leeds respectively. They will take on the position of 'beatbloggers', that is, bloggers who stick to a well-defined beat or coverage area.
The Guardian Local project is a small-scale approach to community newsgathering, with a focus on the three cities to which the bloggers have been appointed. They have been in training at the Guardian's offices this week and will start work on their beats from next week. The blogs will be launched during the first half of this year, although no dates have been confirmed.

Local launch editor Sarah Hartley said on the Inside Guardian blog that there had been a "tremendous" response to the positions advertised. "I'm thrilled that these talented journalists have joined this exciting new venture at such an important time, and more details will be announced in the coming months," she wrote.

This project is being established in the context of various concerns about the local newspaper industry in Britain. Most recently there have been calls for an inquiry into local council-run newspapers, with some members of parliament raising concerns over their impact on the local commercial press. The BBC has ruled out making its websites more localised, saying it was not competing with local papers and websites. Of course, large publications elsewhere, such as The New York Times, have established similar projects. Will the Guardian Local reinvigorate local reporting or tread on the toes of local newspapers?

Source: The Guardian