A council has been warned not to flout government guidelines on local authority newspapers after revealing plans to revive its in-house newsletter ahead of next year’s local elections.

South Ribble Borough Council ceased publication of its ‘Forward’ newsletter in March 2017, but the authority is now planning to produce three issues over the course of the next six months.

Under Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government guidelines, local authorities are told to publish newsletters no more than quarterly.

After being asked about the council’s plan by HTFP, the MHCLG has urged the authority to show “due regard” for the department’s publicity code.

An MHCLG spokesperson said: “Local authorities should have due regard to the publicity code when considering how to communicate with local residents.”

Voters in South Ribble go to the polls in eight months, and the opposition Labour group has accused the ruling Conservative administration of “gerrymandering” by deciding to revive Forward.

The Tories have insisted the publication will remain “politically neutral” – but Nicola Adam, deputy editor of local daily the Lancashire Post, voiced scepticism over the claim.

She posted on Twitter: “I’m sure it’s meant with best intentions but incredibly hard to pull off in an in-house magazine intrinsically beset by political pressures and spin.”

Councillor Paul Foster, leader of South Ribble’s opposition Labour group, told the Post: “Just before an all-out election in eight months’ time, the council are proposing to publish the paper three times. At best, that’s gerrymandering – it really isn’t on.

“Having read the [draft of the next edition], I could not believe it. If you swapped Forward for the Conservative magazine “In Touch’, it could be exactly the same thing – it is horrendously biased towards the administration.”

Forward was last published in March 2017, when the council launched a review of the way it communicates with residents.

A cross-party working group suggested using electronic newsletters – but the authority’s website is not yet fully compatible with mobile devices, meaning access would be restricted.

In a meeting at which the publication’s revival was discussed, Cllr Warren Bennett, the council’s cabinet member for resources, said: “How many times have we talked about reaching the difficult-to-reach parts of the community? A direct mail through somebody’s letterbox is one of the easiest ways to do that.

“A lot of digital media goes straight in the junk file. Letters through letterboxes has a cut through.”

Members heard that the cost of delivering each issue to every household would be £6,640 under a new arrangement with Royal Mail, and that production costs are to be met from within the council’s existing communications budget.