I spoke to a man who lived in a shed to highlight his desperate situation

Meet the Jaywick man who lives in a 6×7 garden shed

Story link: Meet the Jaywick man who calls a 6×7 garden shed home

Jaywick has consistently been named the most deprived neighbourhood in the UK, according to government reports. Our Jaywick content, which is usually based on crime, poverty stricken families or the town’s general state of deprivation, has always performed well on our site. My feature on Adrian Docherty, the man living in a garden shed, was our chance to address town’s deprivation through a human interest case study instead of government statistics.

Through previous Jaywick-related stories I had made contacts in the area, including Danny Sloggett. Many Jaywick residents see Danny as the voice of the town, mainly because of his involvement in community projects like the Jaywick Sands Happy Club. He documents a lot of his community work on Facebook through live videos. The video embedded below is what first drew my attention to Ad ‘s living situation.

How I developed the story:

I messaged Danny and arranged for myself and a photographer to meet Ad on October 30. I wanted to meet Ad in person to get a real feel for what his living conditions were like, which would have been incredibly difficult to do over the telephone. After interviewing Danny at a local cafe he took myself and my photographer, Chris Cook, to meet him. It was obvious he had little experience talking to the press so after Chris took the photographs we needed, I returned to the local cafe with Ad where we chatted over a hot beverage.

After taking him out of the cramped environment he seemed to relax slightly and open up more. In a society where the views of the homeless are more often than not suppressed, my article gave Ad the opportunity to have a voice.

If Danny hadn’t posted about Ad on his Facebook page his living situation was unlikely to have ever been brought to my attention, let alone been on the radar of a national reporter. This highlights the importance of having reliable contacts, especially in areas like Jaywick where residents may be very reluctant to talk to the press because of how their town is usually portrayed in the media. Having a contact like Danny in what has been a hostile patch for our news organisation was invaluable.

As well as interviewing Danny I also included a comment from Tendring District Council. After the article, Ad moved out of his garden shed and into a caravan, donated to him by a local resident.

How well it did for our site:

The story delivered 2,815 page views, it also reached 12,322 people on Facebook and had just over 1,000 engagements. While it didn’t generate huge numbers for our site, it propelled Ad’s story into the spotlight and set the national news agenda.

How I set the national news agenda:

A BBC Journalist also took an interest in Ad’s story. Just 11 days after my report was published the BBC published a one-and-a-half-minute video package summarising Ad’s story. Almost a year on, Channel 4 news also gave air-time to Ad’s story, as part of their ‘Jaywick: The most deprived town in Britain’ news package.