A newspaper set up to serve the Western Isles of Scotland has closed after just nine months.

A lack of advertising support and no assistance from public enterprise agencies, which could have helped the start-up, were blamed for the demise of The Hebridean.

It was set up by Kenny Maciver and Peter Urpeth, both former editors of the Stornoway Gazette, the paper they hoped to rival.

But they reached a circulation of just 5,000, compared with the Gazette’s 13,500 per week.

Their ambitious plan was to cover some 180 miles north to south, taking in a wide cross-section of population. It was a square-shaped weekly tabloid with a bound-in weekend supplement.

A spokesman said: "We made every effort to keep the paper going but there was not sufficient advertising to support it."

Four jobs have been lost with the paper’s closure, with the editor and the sales manager leaving three months ago in a restructuring exercise.

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