Staff at Mid Somerset Newspapers in Wells are celebrating as sales of its titles continue to rise - breaking both its ABC record and recording the highest ever weekly sale in less than a month.

Sales of the series, which is made up of the Central Somerset Gazette, Shepton Mallet Journal, Wells Journal and Cheddar Valley Gazette, this week reached 19,351 - the highest ever level for a one week sale since the series was founded more than 150 years ago.

The success follows hot on the heels of the series's best ever ABC figures, with average sales of 18,394 being recorded between January and June this year.

Sales were 15,200 copies a week only six years ago.

Assistant editor Tim Lethaby said: "We've seen sales gradully rising over the past couple of years and peaking over the past month or so. We are obviously delighted.

"There are more people and community-based stories in the papers than there were perhaps five or ten years ago, and more photojournalism, more faces."

But he said the paper would not be resting on its laurels, and was constantly striving to make improvements.

He said: "Earlier this year we had a redesign where we changed the fonts and the layout of the papers to make them easier on the eye.

"The changes appear to have worked - we didn't have one single complaint from readers when they were introduced.

"Now we are aiming to hit that 20,000 mark."

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