A monthly nostalgia and history newspaper run by the Leicester Mercury has been axed.

The Leicestershire Chronicle was produced by the Mercury’s features team and contained historical stories and research from around the area. No jobs will be lost as a result of the closure.

Mercury editor Nick Carter said: “We closed the Chronicle because it was not selling enough copies each month to justify the editorial talent it was taking up.

“It was taking up a considerable amount of time within my excellent, award-winning features team that I believe should be spent on improving the features contribution to the paper which sells 70,000 plus copies every day as opposed to the Chronicle’s 6,000 to 7,000 copies every month.

“It was not justifying its resources. With the time freed up we can launch a new weekly environmental and family page in the Mercury which will be read by many more thousands of people.”

Nick added that the Mercury also planned to increase its entertainment and leisure section by four pages from next month although this decision was made prior to deciding to close the Chronicle.

Chris Morley, the National Union of Journalists’ northern organiser, described the decision as a “short-term panic measure.”