Council seeks private partner to run newspaper

Tuesday September 28, 2010

A ground breaking partnership to produce a local newspaper looks set to be established in Hammersmith & Fulham.

H&F Council intends to transform its newspaper, H&F News, into a partnership arrangement with an independent news provider.

The move – the first of its kind in the UK - would guarantee 100% editorial independence whilst ensuring that council tax payers benefit from a share of advertising profits and low communication costs through the partnership.

Council Leader Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh said: “This is about creating the best of both worlds of having a newspaper with independently produced news but with council tax payers benefitting from its commercial success.

“We want the council to be scrutinised and we want local public services to be held to account, “ he added. “However, we also want a return on our investment given that our council newspaper has created an advertising market in our borough virtually from scratch to one that is worth £500,000 a year.”

The Council will help transfer all existing private and council advertising into the partnership arrangement and will work with the news provider in other ways to support the commercial operation.

“Local newspapers and local authorities should work together more closely,” said Cllr Greenhalgh. “We expect to be criticised when we get things wrong and we want a newspaper that reflects the views of the community, particularly at a time when all councils face tough spending decisions.

“However, councils and local papers share a common purpose around wanting to properly engage and involve our residents on what is best for our borough. This partnership will build on that.”

While H&F wants no say in editorial coverage, it wants to use the newspaper to communicate and engage with residents in allocated space clearly set aside for the Council.

The Council launched H&F News to fill a communications void in the borough. At the time, the borough’s biggest selling newspaper only sold 1,300 copies. That situation changed in January 2010 when the same newspaper went free and is now distributed door-to-door.

Cllr Greenhalgh added: “We have proved to the private sector that you can run a successful local paper in H&F. Now it’s time to change our model to one that provides even greater value for money to our residents and one that provides truly independently produced news.”

H&F News was judged by the Good Communication Awards to be Britain’s best council newspaper in 2009. H&F was judged by the LGC Awards to be Britain’s best local authority in 2010.

The tender will be advertised European-wide and open to all news providers.