Hi, I'm Michael
I grew up in Middlesbrough, spent over 20 years in Hartlepool, and a few years ago came back home. It felt right — like things clicking back into place.
I've been in IT since 1985 and building websites since 1998, long before most people knew what one was. Around 2002 I managed the web presence for Hartlepool Council for a few years — which meant learning to communicate clearly, deliver reliably, and explain technical things to people who just needed them to work.
I don't use jargon, I don't overcomplicate things, and I won't disappear after handing over a website. You get a real person, local to you, who picks up the phone.
See the websites I’ve built →
28 years of getting it built
28 years of building websites across wildly different sectors — academic clinical trials at King’s College London and Imperial College London, print magazine publishers, local business directories, and yes, a paranormal research community that grew to millions of visitors before I sold it in 2012.
Different audiences, different industries, different problems. The common thread: delivered properly, made to work.
See the screenshots and full history →Coming home
When I moved back to Middlesbrough the house needed work. Plumbers, joiners, decorators — coming and going for weeks. I got talking to them, and started thinking about how people find tradespeople they can trust.
These are the people who keep a place feeling like a community. They’re not faceless national chains — they’re your neighbours. A van pulled up across the road to do some gardening, and a neighbour said she’d never ring someone like that — just a name and a number on the side. Nothing to look up, no way to judge. Skilled and reliable counts for nothing if nobody can find that out.
That’s what Local Roots Digital is about. The trades and small businesses that keep this area running deserve to be found and trusted properly.
One person, deliberately
No account managers, no handoffs, no “I’ll check with the team.” You talk to me, I build it, I support it. That’s the whole operation.