There have been running stories about cuts, especially since the change of Government in Westminster.

Exclusive access to the cuts plan and all day team effort left us with a nine page special on the cuts plan.

I interviewed the outgoing chief executive and exclusively revealed the name of the new one.

Following a major row between the administration partners I exclusively interviewed the key figures on all sides.

And I’ve also covered wider politics in Scotland, looking at the impact of the Coalition Government’s budget and the decisions by Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney.

On election night, I covered the counts for Scunthorpe and Brigg and Goole  from the Ancholme Leisure Centre. Through the night, I held an online CoverItLive chat with readers from the floor of the count, interviewed the candidates, reported on Twitter and filed stories to the Scunthorpe Telegraph website. Once the results were in, I filed copy for a special region-wide supplement published alongside the Scunthorpe Telegraph, Grimsby Telegraph and Lincolnshire Echo on May 7.

And as the General Election got underway, the Elliot Morley expenses story continued to develop. As Parliament was dissolved, Mr Morley retired as an MP after a turbulent 12 months and court proceedings edged onwards with an announcement on legal aid.

Two major projects are edging closer to reality in North Lincolnshire – the ambitious Lincolnshire Lakes scheme and a massive waste processing contract. I’ve gone behind the scenes on both projects to write backgrounders – and found two exclusive splashes.

Recently, I’ve covered the 2010/11 budget for North Lincolnshire Council, uncovered an interesting story about proposals to negotiate with travel firms to cut school truancy and reported on potential problems with a major infrastructure project in the region.

Freedom of Information requests over the Christmas period led to two interesting stories on North Lincolnshire Council about pay equality and school arsons.

Freezing winter weather led to any number of weather stories – but North Lincolnshire Council running dangerously low on grit as exams loomed took a day of challenging interviews to get answers for the readers.

As the 2010 budget approached, the Baths Hall is quickly rising back up the council agenda. Procurement processes are continuing and a nostalgia story helped move the paper on ahead of the political battles over finance to come.

A series of other issues have also emerged at the council over recent months.

In the second half of 2009, I covered political disputes about how prepared the council is for any potential budget cuts over the next five years.

A major story since I’ve started has been the re-development of Scunthorpe venue the Baths Hall. It’s sparked fierce political argument throughout my time here – both good natured and bad.

At the budget meeting in February it was announced the controversial project was being put on the back burner for a year in the face of capital budget shortfalls. Covering the budget is also a good opportunity to really take council stories out to the people: everyone wants to know what is happening to their council tax bills.

And with the focus on MPs expenses for most of 2009, council politicians have also faced closer scrutiny by local people.

Working politics gives plenty of great stories, from the Icelandic banking crisis writ large locally, funerals over a web-cam and exclusives about the senior management of children’s services.

Probably the most tragic story of the year came to a head in early April as the funerals of Nick Smith and Louis Wainright took place in Scunthorpe. The teenagers died after a night out in the town and, as has been widely reported, their deaths have been linked with the then “legal high” of Mephedrone. I covered Nick’s funeral on April 1 in print and online.

An extraordinary tale emerged in Barton Upon Humber when I was able to establish links between an apparent double suicide and a live child porn investigation at Humberside Police. I used my contacts inside the force and scooped the local TV news with the story.

Two key announcements from the Department for Transport in North Lincolnshire saw huge steps forward I have covered for many months. Upgrades to major route the A160 were moved a step closer by minister Sadiq Khan and he also gave an update on the Humber Bridge tolls review. Sadly the minister cancelled his visit to North Lincolnshire at the last minute but the response was nevertheless enthusiastic.

A controversial story which followed a tip-off through this website has sparked debate in the town. I revealed Scunthorpe landmark Club 2000 could be demolished despite the investment of taxpayer cash from Government-backed Yorkshire Forward.

I’ve covered my first murder trial and got stuck into inquests for the first time in a long while.

A devastating blaze in New Holland left five North Lincolnshire families homeless. The community is rallying round to help them but the damaging effects of the chip pan blaze will last for a long time.

The funeral of Scunthorpe United legend Jack Brownsword brought touching tributes from family members and Iron fans – and Kevin Keegan.

Meanwhile, the campaign is up and running in Scunthorpe. We’ve had some fun with Ladbrokes seat-by-seat odds while waiting for the election to be called. I’ve lots of ideas for covering my first campaign as a professional journalist and plenty of them will appear here in the next few months.

To read my earlier coverage of the Elliot Morley story, see my first post here and my second post here.

The story has moved on quickly in the past few weeks. Nic Dakin was selected as the Labour candidate from a long list of 32 people from across the country. I’ve covered the selection process in depth since it got underway in September.

The selection of Mr Dakin also means Scunthorpe now has its three main candidates in place. As part of my build-up to the General Election, I produced a Question Time style feature over three days to test the views of Mr Dakin, Conservative Caroline Johnson and Liberal Democrat Neil Poole.

In late 2009 Mr Morley returned to the headlines at the heart of speculation he could face charges over his expense claims. The MP declined to confirm he was facing possible prosecution but denied reports lawyers were working to avoid CPS action through Parliamentary Privilege. Meanwhile, as 2010 dawned, the three main candidates fighting for votes in Scunthorpe got their campaigns running in earnest.

As we move closer to the election, I hope to look at the other seats in North Lincolnshire and go further in questioning the candidates for Scunthorpe – a seat which I think could be one of the most fascinating in the country given the context behind the Labour Party selection process.

On the day the story broke, I was the first and only reporter to interview Mr Morley about the allegations made against him. He told me the events of the day had left him “shattered”.

After initial coverage of the expenses story, a huge response fed into the Scunthorpe Telegraph website. An independent candidate, Stuart Maw, came forward and voters told me they had lost faith in their MP.

But Mr Morley said the reaction reaching him from voters had been more mixed. He signalled his intention to fight on and said he would clear his name.

But, despite his hope for vindication, on May 30 Mr Morley announced he would not seek re-election as Scunthorpe MP. Mr Morley said again he had made a genuine error. Tackling this story alongside a big press gathering was a new experience and one I hope to repeat again soon.

Following the announcement, I worked through the weekend to find out if Mr Morley’s move would be enough to satisfy his constituents. It quickly became clear the anger in Scunthorpe had not lessened in the weeks since the scandal broke.

In the days after the announcement, I kept in close touch with my contacts on the story to gauge feeling. For the first time since the story broke, Labour Party people began to talk about the story with ex-Scunthorpe MP John Ellis revealing his disappointment.

The release of all MPs’ expenses data led to another huge day’s work on the story. I trawled through the expenses documents in detail, uncovering thousands of pounds of claims made by Mr Morley and North Lincolnshire’s other MPs.

The story continued with more revelations showing Mr Morley had repaid another £20,000 after mistakenly claiming for mortgage capital in breach of House of Commons rules. Despite the latest trouble, the Labour group on North Lincolnshire Council stood by the MP’s decision to stay until the next election.

I am still following this story as it develops. A new Labour candidate will soon be selected, the Metropolitan Police may yet probe Mr Morley’s expenses and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards John Lyons is yet to report on the affair.

The Bridge Board has to raise tolls to finance a historic £330-million construction debt and many campaigners believe this means the Government has to be the main target of the efforts to see the Humber Bridge tolls scrapped or significantly reduced.

After the initial launch, I wrote daily stories looking at the business, health and economic impacts of the Humber Bridge charges.

Alongside the Scunthorpe Telegraph campaign, independent research was also commissioned by the four local authorities on either side of the Humber Bridge and the Hull and Humber Chamber of Commerce. The resulting report was launched in Westminster by Brigg and Goole MP Ian Cawsey and I covered the story from London with my colleague Selina Maycock.

Early figures released ahead of the report’s publication showed businesses annually spent more than £1-million on bridge tolls. The report itself demonstrated an economic boost of more than £1-billion over 25 years if the tolls were scrapped.

Alongside the coverage of the report, we also launched a petition calling for the tolls to be scrapped or reduced to £1. It became the biggest petition in the history of the Scunthorpe Telegraph, attracting more than 11,000 names across the Humber region.

Shortly after the publication of the independent report, Toll Too Far’s first campaign goal was achieved as a public inquiry was called into the plans to raise the tolls. An unprecedented number of ordinary people had written to the Department for Transport to protest against the plans in the wake of the Toll Too Far campaign.

Support for the campaign continued to build after the announcement of the public inquiry. Thousands of names rolled into the Toll Too Far petition, politicians continued to build a case for the Government and regional organisations continued to come on board.

New research was set to show scrapping the tolls or reducing the charges would cost the Government £170-million over the next 25 years. I was leaked the information early and had the exclusive story scrapping the tolls would cost just £8 a year for every person living in the Humber area.

And, reporting from a meeting of the Humber Bridge Board, I exclusively covered a tentative plan to approach the Government about setting up a 12-month trial of £1 tolls. The Bridge Board said the Government would have to agree to suspending or writing off a portion of the historic bridge debts to make it possible but the intent was widely welcomed.

In March, the three-day public inquiry began at the Willerby Manor Hotel, near Hull. I covered all three days of the inquiry for the Scunthorpe Telegraph as dozens of witnesses stepped forward to make their case against an increase in the tolls.

Months passed after the inquiry as the campaign waited for the result of the Government-backed probe to come back. The Humber Bridge Board reviewed it’s losses – as much as £1-million a year – caused by the wait to increase the tolls. And the second Transport Secretary of the campaign left the DfT, as Geoff Hoon resigned from the Government in the reshuffle.

Against most expectations, transport minister Sadiq Khan blocked the increase in the tolls, leaving the Humber Bridge Board in financial difficulty but drawing praise from campaigners.

Following Mr Khan’s decision, all the focus turned onto a series of meetings between him, the Humber Bridge Board and toll protestors. The Toll Too Far petition was also presented by me to the minister on behalf of the Scunthorpe Telegraph readers.

Covering a meeting between a regional delegation in Westminster, I filed copy to all three papers in the region – the Scunthorpe Telegraph, the Grimsby Telegraph and the Hull Daily Mail.

An interview with economic big thinker Charles Lewis and a behind the scenes look at JobCentre Plus highlighted continuing economic worries.

Just a short time before the expenses trouble hit, I interviewed Scunthorpe MP Elliot Morley about climate change and his then role as President of Globe, an organisation of legislators and parliamentarians from countries across the world.

A new innovation in recent months is the ‘weekend feature’. Reporters working a weekend shift also contribute a feature on something going on in North Lincolnshire. I’ve visited Scunthorpe Obedience and Training Club, which teaches dog athletics, and the Brigg Beer Festival.

I interviewed British boxing legend Nigel Benn and researched the two giant Royal Navy aircraft carriers being partly built with Scunthorpe steel.