Regionals fear £15m planning application ad revenue loss

The regional newspaper trade body has written to housing and planning minister Margaret Beckett in response to a review of the rules governing the planning permission process, which has put forward the possibility of removing the mandatory requirement for notices to be placed in newspapers.

The letter said the Newspaper Society is "surprised" and "concerned" over the report's conclusion that local authorities should be given "greater autonomy and flexibility to determine the best approaches to use in order to notify the public about planning applications, thus allowing them to decide whether to use local newspapers".

The society argues that such a move would grant local authorities the flexibility on where to spend the estimated £15m that is currently spent on newspaper advertising.

The recommendations have been presented to Essex County Council, which led the review and will consider the proposals from the review before publishing an implementation plan.

Lynne Anderson, communications director at the Newspaper Society, said: "Not only would councils be encouraged to rely on cheaper but less effective information channels, undermining the public's right to know, such a move would further damage the local media industry, cutting off an important revenue stream at a critical time when it is tackling the worst commercial conditions in memory."

A spokesman representing the compilers of the report said: "We met the Newspaper Society and they gave us a presentation and we asked them for facts and figures for rthe report."