A committee of MPs has called for major changes to the way local news is funded.

The Digital, Culture, Media & Sport Committee (DCMSC) says its quality and provision will continue to decline without fresh support from the government.

The committee has been probing the sustainability of local journalism in the UK and its members have been taking evidence from many leading figures in the industry, reports the Hold the Front Page website.

Their findings, released in a report published yesterday, claims that local publishers have struggled to adapt to the shift away from print towards an online world which favours larger players.

As well as additional government funding, the report calls for a "fairer" distribution of existing support, saying that larger publishers are currently taking a "disproportionate" share.

The report states: "While market consolidation has ensured the survival of newspaper titles, the committee is concerned that some of the approaches of the largest publishers may be reducing the quality of the local journalism produced by their titles.

"The largest publishers taking a disproportionate share of available support may be stifling much needed innovation. There should be an audit of public money that supports local news and an analysis of whether this could be distributed more fairly."

The report also calls on the BBC to reconsider its controversial plans to shift resources from local radio stations to digital services.

It also calls for the BBC-funded Local Democracy Reporter Service to be expanded across more platforms and to give access to a wider range of news providers.

During their investigation, MPs discovered that more than 300 local newspaper titles had closed between 2009 and 2019, with surviving news providers often operating with diminished resources and fewer journalists.

The report highlights the harmful impact on communities of the resulting decline in access to local news, including a decrease in participation in civic life, less scrutiny of local government decisions and increasing levels of polarisation and misinformation.

Punchline reported earlier this month that the publishing group which produces several Gloucestershire newspapers looks set to cut 200 jobs , with more than 100 in editorial roles.

Reach Plc, which publishes the Citizen and Echo as well as the Western Daily Press, is currently involved in a redundancy consultation process with more than 250 journalists. Punchline understands that at least one journalist's job at the Citizen and Echo is set to go.