THE Dudley News website has made a flying start to 2013 with the biggest monthly audience figures ever recorded.

More than 47, 000 users visited dudleynews.co.uk in January – twice as many as last year.

The site is part of a Midlands network incorporating sister papers at Stourbridge, Halesowen, Kidderminster, Redditch, Bromsgrove and Droitwich.

All seven sites showed huge growth in January and attracted a total of 284,000 users – a 41 per cent improvement on last year.