I was therefore dismayed to learn of two government proposals that could quietly strip away local transparency and silence our communities.
First, the Government’s Licensing Taskforce — set up to review the alcohol licensing system under the Licensing Act 2003 — has recommended removing the legal requirement for licensing notices to appear in printed local newspapers, such as the News Shopper.
The taskforce, tellingly, was dominated by representatives of the hospitality and night-time industries.
According to reports, the press, the people whose job it is to keep the public informed, were not even at the table.
That recommendation has now found its way into a government consultation on licensing reform, recently launched by the Prime Minister and Business Secretary.
Among the questions: should alcohol licensing notices (those small but important adverts that tell residents about plans for new pubs, pubs, or late-night venues) no longer have to appear in print?
This would mean that plans to open a new club or extend drinking hours could be hidden away online, out of sight for many residents who still rely on their local paper.
At the same time, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, now making its way through Parliament, proposes removing the legal requirement for notices about changes to local authority governance to appear in local papers.
Simply put, this means councils could make sweeping changes, altering how they make decisions and spend taxpayer money, without the public ever seeing a printed notice about it.
Taken together, these moves amount to an attack on the basic right to know what is going on in your area.
They would gag local communities.
Local newspapers remain a trusted and visible place for public notices.
They’re read by people who care about where they live.
And they often contain scrutiny and information from independent journalists who know their beat well.
Removing print notices keeps people in the dark and risks shutting out those who aren’t online.
A House of Lords report last year found that 10.2 million adults — one in five — lack the basic skills to navigate the online world.
Many of them are older, isolated, or vulnerable.
Why should they be left out of important decisions involving their communities?
Independent research from OnePoll found that local newspapers remain the number one source people use to find public notices — that’s ahead of council websites, search engines, or social media.
Even the government itself has previously acknowledged the importance of newspaper notices.
During debates on the rushed and poorly thought-through Planning and Infrastructure Bill, ministers said that print notices were “an important part” of legal processes like compulsory purchase orders — and warned that removing them could make such processes more complex and slower.
Finally, let’s not ignore the elephant in the room.
Public notices are an important source of revenue for local journalism.
This is a sector the government claims it wants to support.
Removing that income would do harm to the newsrooms that keep our communities informed.
The government should think again — and commit to keeping public notices in printed local newspapers, where they belong.
