The news battle in a market town is hotting up after a weekly newspaper announced it is extending its patch with the launch of a new edition.

The Buxton Advertiser has created a new edition for Glossop in Derbyshire which will have dedicated front and back pages and further news coverage inside the paper.

It means the Peak District town, which has a population of32,428, will now have three weekly print titles and one digital paper competing for readers.

The new edition of the Advertiser will be up against the Glossop Chronicle, now owned by a housing association, Trinity Mirror-owned free weekly the Glossop Advertiser, and the Glossop Gazette, launched by residents as a print title last year and now published as an e-edition.

The Advertiser’s new edition will be available in newsagents across the area from today, priced at 75p, and will also cover neighbouring villages including Hadfield, Padfield, Simmondley, Dinting and Gamesley.

Buxton Advertiser editor Jonathan Dodds said: “Launching a new edition and extending a newspaper’s circulation area may be seen as a bold move, considering the difficulties faced by the industry in recent years, but we are confident we are ready for the challenge.

“We have been at the heart of our community since 1842, serving thousands of loyal readers across the High Peak, Hope Valley and Derbyshire Dales each week, and we are looking forward to providing this same level of service to the residents and businesses of Glossop.

“We want readers to get involved in our new venture too. If there’s an issue that matters to you, then it matters to us too.”

The new edition comes after the Advertiser was relaunched with a new look in February as part of a roll-out across Johnston Press.

Its redesign saw it introduce a puzzles page, reader picture section and a monthly nostalgia supplement and improve its postbag and neighbourhood news sections.

The Glossop Gazette was launched by a group of residents in the town last October after the Glossop Chronicle was suspended for a number of weeks while it sought new owners.

It later resumed publication after being sold to the New Charter Housing Association along with the Tameside Reporter.

However the Gazette has since run into difficulties and told readers last month it would only continue as a digital version.

It suspended the printed edition of the paper after Tesco in Glossop announced it had no room to stock the new title.

In the 1 May edition, the paper told readers: “Following Tesco’s shock announcement that they do not have space to sell the Glossop Gazette the printed paper has been suspended and replaced with a free electronic version.

“The Glossop Gazette cannot compete with ‘local’ papers that are available in Tesco unless it becomes a free publication funded entirely from advertising.

“The printed Glossop Gazette will be published periodically, when finances allow, but until further notice the paper will be only available in electronic format.”

No electronic editions have been published since.