ALL of us at the Hexham Courant are humbled and heartened by the overwhelming public support for calls for Northumberland County Council to restore the publication of statutory public notices in our columns.

From the outset we have made it abundantly clear that the omission of notices is denying this business of regular revenues.

However, it is also abundantly clear that the overriding concern of individuals and groups across our local communities is about the detrimental impact on the principles of local democracy, open government and accountability.

Communities in the west of Northumberland feel marginalised in such a vast unitary authority.

Without readily available access to vital public information in their local newspaper, that feeling of isolation is compounded.

The council’s justification for omitting notices from the Courant becomes more and more implausible as it comes under increasing scrutiny.

If, as the council maintains, the new policy is driven by the desire to cut costs, then why was the Hexham Courant not asked to enter into discussions?

The council’s insistence that the publication of notices relevant to the Courant’s core circulation area in the Northumberland Gazette meets legal obligations has been clearly demonstrated to be false.

If, as the council insists, the Gazette’s presence in this part of the county is healthy, then why has the council decided (three months after the event, and only after legality was called into question) to start placing free copies of the Gazette in council buildings across Tynedale?

How is the cost of this exercise consistent with the council’s now frankly absurd assertion that “the Northumberland Gazette , as it name suggests, is a newspaper designed to cover the whole of Northumberland”?

If, as the council insists, there is no political motive in omitting public notices from the Courant , then it should reflect on its feeble financial and legal justifications for doing so.

The plain and simple fact is that its justifications do not hold up to even the most basic scrutiny.

The council insists this new policy is a trial.

It is time to call a halt to the trial forthwith, before further and lasting damage is caused to the credibility of the council’s duty to be democratic, transparent, and just to all of its communities.

Colin Tapping, Editor