A 64-page news and property magazine for the Stroud area is being launched today by Northcliffe’s Gloucestershire Media.

Stroud Life has won over local estate agents and has 36 pages of local property and will be published weekly.

It is produced on higher quality paper to give it a magazine feel.

The new paper will be given away free with The Citizen for the first four weeks.

What the publisher calls “a significant number” of copies will be distributed to “high value” households in the area, and an extensive sampling campaign will also be conducted via Stroud’s supermarket outlets and other high footfall areas. The new magazine will also be available in all traditional news outlets.

Gloucestershire Media editor-in-chief Ian Mean said: “I am very passionate about the Stroud community and this will give us the opportunity to better champion the issues that really matter in the area.

“This is a community of individuals who believe in issues and debate. We will be using our growing online presence to develop that interactivity with the local community – to have an ongoing conversation with them online and in print.”

The Stroud Life package will include a new online video service, Stroud TV, which will provide online video bulletins on life in the Stroud area. The first weekly bulletin features a video on Stroud Farmers Market.

An integral part of the new publication will be the new Stroud-dedicated section on www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk.

This will replicate daily breaking news updates and interactive forums in other geographical areas edited from the company’s Stroud office by three journalists including The Citizen’s chief reporter, Ben Falconer. The editor is Vicky Temple, a former features editor of The Citizen living in Stroud.

Over the launch period of March and April, an extensive marketing campaign is being used to achieve maximum awareness and trial of the new product package.

Managing director Andrew Blair said: “Tied in with our major national partners – findaproperty.com, motors.co.uk and jobsite.co.uk – we intend to offer an unrivalled package of trusted, vibrant and compelling local content and market-leading classified platforms.”

Local rival the Stroud News & Journal has a 16-page property supplement this week after the Northcliffe title won over key players in the area to try its new product.