HAMPSHIRE council chiefs are considering controversial plans to stop using local newspapers for public notices.

Council chiefs say they could save some of the £1.5m a year spent in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight by advertising everything from road closures to planning applications online instead.

But newspaper industry experts have slammed the cost-cutting proposals, saying people would miss out if they were unable to get the information in local papers.

A report to Hampshire County Council’s efficiency panel said many of the notices printed in the local press had to be published there by law, but that advertising could be expensive and may no longer be the most cost-effective way of sharing information with the public because of a decline in newspaper readership and mass use of the Internet.

The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Procurement Partnership – a group of councils working together as buyers – is considering using an online public notices portal.

Neil Jones, assistant director of business, said they would still need to place adverts in local newspapers “signposting” readers to the portal. He added the council still had to get legal advice to check if that would meet its statutory duty to advertise in the local press.

Newspaper Society communications director Lynne Anderson said: “The concern is that publication on council websites alone would result in excluding large sections of the public and seriously undermine the public’s right to know.

“The Government acknowledged this and the importance of local press in publicising public notices when last year it rejected plans to abolish the statutory obligation to publish planning notices in local newspapers in England.”

Daily Echo editor Ian Murray added: “Any bid to hide important council notices informing the public of what a local authority is up to should be resisted. To remove public notices from local newspapers will mean huge numbers of local people will no longer have access to them. This smacks of secrecy and hypocrisy from a county council that, as we report elsewhere, is seeking to take on a new £83,000 spin doctor. It makes you wonder what they’ve got to hide.”