The Newspaper Society is urging the regional press to make full use of new legislation which aims to combat council secrecy.

New laws setting out press and public access to council meetings come into force on 10 September and aim to increase openness by local authorities.

The regulations, announced by communities secretary Eric Pickles, state that councils must give 28 days notice of their intention to hold any meetings behind closed doors and their reasons for doing so – providing an opportunity for this to be challenged by news outlets.

Five full days before the meeting, the council must then post a further notice about the intended exclusion, details of any representations received, and its response to them.

The NS said:  “The press must use this opportunity to challenge council secrecy, as the regulations will make exclusion mandatory, not discretionary as at present, for the parts of meetings at which exempt information is likely to be disclosed after a resolution to that effect is passed, as well as where confidential information might be disclosed.”

The regulations also provide a boost for bloggers and journalists working for hyperlocal websites as local authorities will be required to supply “reasonable facilities” for anyone attending to cover meetings, not just the press as at present.

Mr Pickles said: “Every decision a council takes has a major impact on the lives of local people so it is crucial that whenever it takes a significant decision about local budgets that affect local communities, whether it is in a full council meeting or in a unheard of sub-committee, it has got to be taken in the full glare of all the press and any of the public.

“Margaret Thatcher was first to pry open the doors of Town Hall transparency. Fifty years on we are modernising those pioneering principles so that every kind of modern journalist can go through those doors – be it from the daily reporter, the hyper-local news website or the armchair activist and concerned citizen blogger – councils can no longer continue to persist with a digital divide.”

The new regulations are known as the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 (the 2012 Regulations).