The Aldershot Mail has increased its reach to the largest minority living in the paper’s circulation area – by producing a Nepali-English bilingual edition.

The edition will appeal to the Nepalese community living in the Surrey and Hampshire region, where historic ties with the Brigade of Gurkhas makes the area home to one of the biggest concentrations of people from Nepal outside of London.

The paper contains news and business, education, food, drink and fashion pages printed in both English and Nepali.

The Aldershot Mail has a current circulation of 9,900, and the bilingual edition has resulted in the order of several hundred more copies of the paper so far.

Editor Elaine Cole said: “There have been tensions between the different communities in the area and we wanted to try to improve understanding between them.

“As a paper we are always trying to reach out to different groups and give people a voice.

“With this edition we are giving a platform to another section of the community which has not had one before. We will do this again – whether it’s a full paper or a regular section.”

Tikendra Dewan, chairman of the Farnborough-based British Gurkha Welfare Society and former Gurkha major, said: “We have been working together with the Aldershot Mail to produce the edition and I feel it will be a really good tool to reach out to the Nepal community.

“We plan to encourage local Nepalese stores to advertise in the paper and make it a big success.”