Communities secretary Eric Pickles has renewed his attack on local authority publicity free-sheets, penning a letter to newspaper bosses in which he pledges to end ‘Town Hall Pravdas'.

Mr Pickles' letter to the Newspaper Society follows on from the announcement in last week's Queen's Speech of the Local Audit and Accountability Bill, which contains provisions to put the current council publicity code on a formal legal footing.

In the letter, Mr Pickles states his belief the 1,100 local newspapers ‘are the heartbeat of communities, an essential cog in the democratic wheel and exemplary localists'.

He branded the spread of the Town Hall ‘Pravda' as manifestly unfair ‘because they offer cut price local news, but mixed in with council propaganda that pours taxpayers money down the drain'.

‘These free-sheets are often confused for the real thing by residents. I want our news to be told and sold under the masthead of an independent and free press, not through a knock-off Rolex imitation,' Pickles stated.

At yesterday's Local Government Associations executive meeting, Sir Merrick Cockell said he had met with local government ministers Brandon Lewis and Baroness Hanham to discuss the provisions.

Sir Merrick, who chairs the LGA, said he told the ministers that the very title of the proposal, ‘Protecting the independent press from unfair competition' was objectionable' in view of the £44m spent annually by councils in ‘propping up the independent local media'.

Mayor Dorothy Thornhill, the Liberal Democrat leader of Watford BC, said: ‘Authorities have a fundamental right to communicate with their electorate.'