Barnet Post editor David Floyd on the relaunch of our monthly print newspaper this December

Barnet Post will be returning in print in December 2023

Barnet Post will be returning in print from December with 15,000 free copies distributed every month in supermarkets and community venues across the borough.

We first appeared as a print newspaper for eight monthly issues between July 2021 and February 2022 before going online only in March 2022.

Since then, we’ve published some great journalism online including a series of features on the borough’s food banks and an investigation into local views on ULEZ – but being online only limits our readership and our impact.

Barnet Post is published by Social Spider Community News, a not-for-profit community interest company, which also publishes Waltham Forest Echo, Haringey Community Press, Enfield Dispatch and Newham Voices.

We are well aware of the challenges involved in publishing local newspapers in the social media age. The traditional sources of revenue that local news publishers relied on until the mid-2000s have either shrunk substantially or disappeared entirely.

Local news advertising income went from £2.74billion in 2007 to £1.27billion in 2017, a drop of 54%.

As a small not-for-profit social enterprise we don’t have a magic solution to these challenges but what we do have is an unambiguous commitment to local news.

We believe that local news is vitally important to democracy, giving you the information you need to understand what the council and other public agencies are doing – and to engage with the democratic process.

We also believe that local news publications play a vital role in helping you understand what’s going on in the local area – and in amplifying the voices of those who would otherwise not be heard.

Where we are right now is that I edit Barnet Post online as part of a wider role as managing director of Social Spider. The big exciting next step is that we are returning to print, on a monthly basis, from December onwards.

Our aim over the next year is to get to the point where we can have a dedicated local editor for Barnet Post, based in a (small, inexpensive) local office. We want to produce more local journalism, locally, and to give more people the chance to read it.

Even with the challenges facing local news, this is not impossible. We are already doing it in Waltham Forest and Enfield but we need your help to do it Barnet.

We need local businesses, public sector agencies, charities and campaign groups to buy advertising space in the paper.

We also need readers to sign up as supporters. If 500 people signed up to contribute £5 per month, we could employ a local editor.

Please get in touch with me – email [email protected] – if you have questions and/or if you’d like to help us grow Barnet Post.

No news is bad news

Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.

The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less.

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, yearly or one-off donation.

Choose the news. Don’t lose the news.

Monthly direct debit

Annual direct debit

£5 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else, £10 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else and a print copy posted to them each month. £50 annual supporters get a digital copy of each month's paper before anyone else. £84 annual supporters get a print copy by post and a digital copy of each month's before anyone else.