Newsquest Cumbria, the publisher of The Cumberland News and News & Star in Carlisle, will this week offer all local independent businesses a free advertisement in their papers as a result of the Covid-19 crisis.

Launching a campaign ‘Backing Independent and Family Businesses’ the publisher said that in an extremely challenging and unprecedented time it wanted to show its support to the communities it serves.

Vanessa Sims, regional group editor said: “In unprecedented times such as these we must all do our best to support our independent businesses.

“Shopping local has never been so important.

“It is no secret our local traders are facing a difficult time and as a champion of our communities, Newsquest Cumbria wants to help in any way it can.

“In all of our titles we will be featuring the efforts of local businesses which have been going the extra mile to support their customers.

“If you have any examples of a business going above and beyond please get in touch.”

Lee Taylor-Craddock, sales director, said: “Newsquest Cumbria and LOCALiQ are best placed to lead on this campaign as we reach a huge percentage of the local population through our brands.

“As this crisis develops the local communities we serve will rely on us to keep them informed. We have already seen a significant increase in traffic to all our news sites over the last week in response to what is going on.

“We will ensure amongst this important communication that we are really banging the drum for independent and family owned businesses from all sectors including retail, hospitality and leisure and encouraging our loyal readership to show their support by shopping local.

The campaign will be officially launched in this week’s papers with continuous coverage across print products and websites.

Read more here.