CITY council leaders have defended spending £12,000 a year on producing a free magazine for the public.

Worcester City Council’s cabinet member for finance Roger Knight said the quarterly publication City Life, delivered free to every household in Worcester, carries important information and interesting articles about the council for the general public to read.

Conservative councillor Knight was responding to a suggestion from opposition Labour leader Adrian Gregson that the cash-strapped council’s money “could be better spent”.

Coun Gregson said the magazine was full of stories and comments of a “Conservative political nature”, and wondered why it did not reflect alternative views. But Coun Knight said the magazine offered a vital tool of communication for the council.

“Its obvious purpose is to communicate with the people of Worcester – and it does this very well,” he said.

“It also carries messages of information from the city council that would otherwise have to be communicated in another way. An obvious example is changes to bin collections.”

Coun Knight went on to reel off a list of “interesting articles “in recent editions, and described the magazine as a rare “good news story”.

He said that while the magazine costs £8,000 an issue to produce, £5,000 is recouped through advertising, meaning the council has a net spend of £3,000 per issue.

But he said that its long-term goal was now to increase advertising revenue, so that the magazine would eventually be cost-neutral.