Culture Secretary Maria Miller has highlighted the potential impact on the local press of new plans for press regulation.

Ministers are currently considering how to implement Lord Justice Leveson’s report which called for a new system of industry self-regulation underpinned by statute.

writing in her own local paper, the Basingstoke Gazette, Ms Miller said that the government would need to “pay particular attention to how local papers will be affected.”

She said thaty while Basingstoke still has a strong local newspapers, it was “easy to forget” that some communities no longer have them.

Said Ms Miller:  “Local newspapers continue to be animportant check in a strong democracy and provide important local information that supports community life.

“Reforms being put in place by the newspaper industry, following Lord Justice Leveson’s recent report into press practices, need to pay particular attention to how local papers will be affected.”