Not what it once was

WHAT has happened to our so called local paper? Since the takeover by the Trinity Mirror group the local news content seems to be disappearing rapidly, just looking back a few short years ago to 2009 when the paper was 55p there is page after page of local reporting in a total run of 104 pages, is it now the case that because of continual staff and premises cuts the paper no longer has the ability to report on local topics and issues?

Take the other week’s issue as typical of what we have to put up with under the guise of a “news” paper, two pages of Looking Back using photos from the Echo vaults, several adverts for publications by the Mirror group ( it normally is many more) pages of holiday promotions, readers photos many of which have nothing to do with Loughborough, yes I know the excuses will be that this is due to the Christmas/ New Year holiday period etc but it is simply not good enough, please accept that in the view of many people the paper is now very poor value for money.

Chris Barsby Loughborough

I am very sorry to hear of concerns regarding the Echo.

It is true that the newspaper media industry is going through very challenging times, but I feel that we still give good value for money, attempting to highlight local issues and the great work carried out by people and charities in the area.

Andy Rush Echo editor