This weekly letter from the editor will arrive in your inbox each Sunday morning to give you a taste of the top stories we have published over the past week and a wrap-up of the week that was.

It is also another chance for us to thank you for coming on board as a Western Advocate subscriber and supporting the work that we are doing in our community.

Since introducing the subscription model last Tuesday, we have had plenty of people asking “why” – why should they pay for local new that has been made freely available to them online for many years now.

Our answers is simple: “Because quality  local news matter and it costs money to produce it.” It costs money to send journalists to cover council meeting, court proceedings, weekend sporting fixtures and the many other sources of news we have in Bathurst. If we continue giving away our news for nothing, we won’t be around much longer to keep doing that for our community.

Bathurst is what matters to us and that is why we intend to keep on doing what we do best – being the leading local supplier of news and sport.

And the idea that people should pay for their local news is nothing new. The Western Advocate and its forerunners – with a history in Bathurst dating back to 1848 – have always had a cover price. We are now simply asking our online audience to support us as well.

Thank you again for your support and we look forward to delivering Bathurst’s best local news for many years to come – both in print and online.

All the best, Murray