A regional publisher is handing out more than £300,000 as part of a Christmas charity drive.

Newsquest making donations of up to £15,000 to individual causes working on its newspapers patches, as well as to charities helping those in the newspaper industry.

Among the national total for grants are £40,000 being given out to charities in areas served by the company’s titles in the Midlands and Gloucestershire.

Six good causes have won grants ranging from more than £3,000 to £10,000 on the patches of the Halesowen News, Redditch Advertiser, Kidderminster Shuttle, Worcester News and the Gloucestershire Gazette.

Simon Westrop, chairman of the trustees, said: “Experience has taught us that real benefits are more likely to be delivered by smaller, well-defined and well-targeted donations.

“So we tend to like simple things we can understand and which deliver obvious and immediate improvements to people’s lives.”

The latest round of donations brings to £3m the total Newsquest has given charitably in the past decade.

The Gannett Foundation UK, which makes the grants, retains a modest reserve to cater for urgent applications until the next round of awards in November 2017.