A “positive news” weekly has celebrated the publication of its 100th issue amid the “imminent” launch of a new title by the former regional daily colleagues who founded it.

Hartlepool Life has achieved the landmark edition after being launched in 2017 by three former Hartlepool Mail staffers – Steve Hartley, Dirk Van Der Werff and Paul Healey.

The newspaper now employs 20 people on a full-time and part-time basis, including five journalists, printing 18,000 copies a week.

Many of the staff worked with each other at the Mail more than 20 years ago.

The same team launched a sister newspaper on its first anniversary called East Durham Life, serving a patch to the north of their core area, which celebrates its 50th weekly issue next week.

Dirk, who is Hartlepool Life’s editorial production director, hinted that the launch of a third title is “imminent”, although details on which area it will serve have not yet been revealed.

He said: “We took a huge gamble launching a positive news newspaper in one of the most deprived areas of the UK, but we needed to carve out a niche and we didn’t have the resources to cover crime and politics, so we decided to concentrate on all the positive stories in our community.

“We feel we have proved the concept of positive news, despite all the naysayers inside journalism and outside that we were not a real newspaper and that we were living life with rose-tinted spectacles on our faces”

“Our readers love their newspaper, it gives them a light at the end of a tunnel after 10 years of austerity, they can get it in every supermarket in town and over 240 other community pick-up points, for free. The advertisers love it because their products and services are not up against one-punch-knockouts, stabbings and other negativity”.

Dirk added: “As we enter our third year, we see only a positive future for our brilliant small team.”