Journalist Paul Gibson launched the online title Hailsham News in 2017 after “inheriting” a local community Facebook page.

“I saw a lot of stories that were worthy of news items but were not getting coverage in the local press,” he explained.

“It became a hugely popular site, which has strengthened over the past year with the community coming together and also local businesses really wanting to get themselves out there.”

The online news service has already received more than 300,000 page impressions this year, with 425,000 last year. Gibson, who grew up in Hailsham, East Sussex, has also designed and edited the local bi-monthly magazine, Hailsham Eye, since joining the team last year. He said that Hailsham Eye had also gone from strength to strength giving him the confidence to make the leap to print with his news service.

“We’ve seen the growth of the small community magazine over this last year, people are really loving it. And we found there were a lot of issues and information people want to know about that the press here doesn’t cover anymore, possibly because they moved to a bigger town. So people are missing out on local news and information.

"Journalists always used to attend council meetings but they don’t anymore, so that’s exactly what I am doing. I feel I’m bringing back old-school reporting to the town,” he said.

The first run of 7,000 free copies, entirely financed through advertising, is due to hit doorsteps this Friday (1 October). The title is being printed by a national newsprinter.

Gibson said: “We’ve had a huge amount of advertising support. Initially I had thought it would be great to reach 16 pages for the first issue but here we are on 32. I’m really positive about it and the people we have spoken to are excited.”

It is the second local online news title to move into print publishing recently, after the Barnet Post launched its print edition in July, with a circulation of 15,000.

According to online site Hold The Front Page, publishers of the Post ran a successful fundraising campaign to finance its move to print, shortly after launching as an online-only title last February.

The Barnet Post is owned by Social Spider Community Interest Company (CIC), which publishes four other London papers, including the Waltham Forest Echo, Tottenham Community Press, Enfield Dispatch and EC1 Echo.