Bylines Network, The Bristol Cable, the Leicester Gazette, Tower Hamlets Slice, The Stray Ferret and Salamander News, all members of the Independent Media Association, have been awarded funding in the first round of the government’s Local News Fund, securing more than £630,000 between them.
Announced on 5 November during Journalism Matters Week, the grants form part of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Local Media Action Plan, designed to support the long-term sustainability of local journalism England and Wales. In this first round, 50 local publishers were awarded grants of up to £125,000, while seven organisations received up to £275,000 to develop infrastructure for the benefit of the wider industry.
Bylines Network received two awards. A £116,335 grant will fund a citizen-powered sustainability programme across its nine online titles, including Yorkshire Bylines, North East Bylines and Bylines Cymru, aimed at turning readership and participation into stronger reader relationships and recurring income. Bylines also secured £149,886 through the infrastructure strand to build an independent technology stack that will help community and hyperlocal publishers get discovered, build direct relationships with their audiences and turn that trust into sustainable support.
The Bristol Cable was awarded the maximum £125,000 for a six-month digital growth programme, which will bring specialist audience expertise into the co-operative as it moves towards a social-first publishing model and develops new ways of converting readers into paying supporters.
The Leicester Gazette received £81,999 to launch a membership offer, alongside a website redesign, a relaunched newsletter and a series of community listening workshops. The funding has already allowed the Gazette to take on five part-time team members, with its December print run rising to 10,000 copies and appearing in Leicestershire supermarkets for the first time.
In London, Social Streets CIC, publisher of Tower Hamlets Slice, was awarded £71,900 for Audience Commons, a framework combining reader registration software, campaigns to turn readers into paying members and a best-practice playbook. Lewisham’s Salamander News received £32,000 to develop and launch a dedicated video and podcast strand.
In North Yorkshire, The Stray Ferret secured £59,247 to build a self-service system that lets small local businesses upload adverts directly to its website, covering the Harrogate district.
Media Minister Ian Murray said the government was “determined not to leave local journalism to collapse”, adding that the fund would help newsrooms adapt their business models for the online world while encouraging high-quality, trustworthy news.
For Independent Media Association members, the awards show that independent, community-rooted publishers can compete for and win public funding, and that the infrastructure being built by members like Bylines could soon benefit the wider network.
Looking ahead, the second year of the fund will put £1m towards reviving news deserts in communities without a dedicated local outlet, with up to a further £5m available for innovation and sustainability. The next round is expected to open in 2027.
To see the full list of Local News Fund recipients and their projects, click here.
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