With unplanned but apt timing, local government minister Marcus Jones last month sent a letter to three London boroughs telling them to desist from publishing their council newspapers more than quarterly. The reason the timing was apt was because also last month a new study found that 46 local newspapers have closed since 2015 and that 198 have disappeared since 2005.

Ministers have long claimed that councils are not in the business of publishing and that subsidising their own papers, or ‘town hall pravdas’ as their critics dub them, has contributed to the demise of the local press. There is little evidence of this and indeed in many cases it is the council, through its job and particular statutory tender advertising, that has kept the local media afloat. Ironically councils have long called for the abolition of the statutory notice obligation which they say is unnecessary and expensive, but ministers consistently resist any change.