Infrastructure for public interest work in Sunderland
Sunderland has lived through enough decisions about housing, work, health, and policing to fill several archives. When people finally start putting that history online in one place, the website needs to stay calm while everyone reacts.
I build and protect the sites behind that kind of work. Static builds, Cloudflare setups, lawful fingerprinting, and evidence grade logging, tuned for projects that expect interest from institutions as well as residents in Sunderland, Hendon, Pallion, Southwick, and the surrounding areas.
Who this fits in Sunderland
The projects that need serious infrastructure here are usually the ones holding receipts, not the ones printing glossy brochures.
-
Community and tenants groups
Resident led projects in Hendon, Pallion, Southwick, the East End, and the estates that track housing, antisocial behaviour, regeneration, and service decisions over time.
-
Watchdog and scrutiny projects
People documenting decisions by Sunderland City Council, housing providers, contractors, and regional bodies that affect residents across the city and surrounding areas.
-
Advocacy and support networks
Peer led and survivor led groups that need a stable site to explain what they do, publish information, and signpost support instead of depending on a social media feed.
-
Independent media and blogs
Citizen journalists and issue focused blogs covering the city centre, riverside, estates, and wider Wearside, that expect readership from outside Sunderland once stories start to land.
If your work is lawful, serious, and likely to grow beyond private Facebook groups or group chats, it belongs here even if your team is tiny.
What I actually do for Sunderland projects
-
Static sites that stay up
Fast static builds served through Cloudflare instead of fragile plugin stacks and heavy dashboards. Good for projects that might suddenly be linked by journalists, campaigners, or people outside the city.
See Secure static sites.
-
Cloudflare firewall and routing
Firewall rules, bot mitigation, rate limits, and Workers tuned for public interest work. Search engines and accessibility tools are allowed through cleanly, scraping and hostile automation are made to work harder.
-
Evidence grade logging
Edge logs and exports that show what hit your site, when, and how it behaved. Structured so they can sit inside complaints, internal reviews, and regulator correspondence without needing translation.
-
Monitoring aware fingerprinting
Lawful fingerprinting on your own domain so you can see repeat devices and evasive patterns, including quiet interest from councils, contractors, outsourced providers, and agencies that do not want to appear obvious.
Detail and examples on Fingerprinting and Edge Tracker.
-
Email and DNS that behave
SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and DNS configured so your emails reach residents, partner groups, media, and oversight bodies instead of dying in spam when you most need them to land.
-
Governance checks that match reality
Practical fixes to privacy notices, cookie wording, and data handling descriptions so they describe what your infrastructure actually does rather than what a generic template assumed.
Local realities in Sunderland
Sunderland has been through industrial change, austerity, regeneration, and more consultations than anyone can count. People notice when those stories are finally written down properly.
Projects here often deal with deprivation, housing, policing, health access, work, and transport, mapped onto very specific estates and streets. Once that detail gets published in one place, attention can jump quickly from local to regional and national.
A static site behind Cloudflare gives you infrastructure that behaves as if that attention was always expected, not as an afterthought.
How I build for that context
- Infrastructure that assumes scrutiny from institutions and contractors as well as neighbours.
- Separation between content and technical work so you keep full editorial control of what is published.
- Logging and fingerprinting that make repeat actors visible, even when tools and IPs keep moving.
- Documentation that trustees, volunteers, and organisers can follow without a security background.
Boundaries, stated clearly
These limits keep the work defensible for you and for me.
- Ki-Ki provides technical services only. I am not a publisher, editor, investigator, or legal adviser.
- I do not draft, upload, or assist with allegation content about named individuals. If you publish that kind of material, it is your decision and your responsibility.
- Any limited SEO or onboarding copy I prepare is neutral and only goes live after your written approval.
- You must not suggest that Ki-Ki endorses your campaign, your allegations, or your politics.
- If a project crosses into unlawful or high risk territory, I will refuse or terminate the work.
The full position is set out in the Neutral infrastructure policy, alongside the Terms of use and Privacy policy.
Questions Sunderland projects usually ask
Do you only work with established charities in Sunderland?
No. I work with small charities, CICs, informal groups, and individual projects, as long as the work is lawful, serious, and in the public interest.
Can you harden a site we already have?
Often yes. I can place an existing site behind Cloudflare, improve DNS and email, and introduce logging. If the current setup is too fragile, we can plan a move to a static build instead.
Will fingerprinting identify real people by name?
No. It identifies devices and behaviour that hit your site, not named individuals. It is set up as defensive monitoring and aligned with your policies. It is not a tool for personal doxxing.
Do you only work with projects in the city centre?
No. I work with projects across Sunderland, including Hendon, Pallion, Southwick, the East End, and surrounding estates, as long as the work is serious and in the public interest.
What if the council, a contractor, or an agency disputes what we publish?
I cannot give legal advice, however I can make sure your logs and technical position are clear enough to support conversations with lawyers, regulators, or oversight bodies if you choose to involve them.
Start a Sunderland focused conversation
If your project is based in Sunderland or heavily affects people there, tell me what you are building, what worries you, and what level of attention you expect. I will be honest about whether I am the right fit.