Portsmouth MPs back calls to Home Secretary Priti Patel for answers over 'disturbing' decision to block delivery of The News

Editor Mark Waldron has alerted Priti Patel to the unprecedented situation which saw delivery vans trapped at the Thurrock press plant in Essex after police closed a key road because of protests by Just Stop Oil environmental activists.

Essex Police and Thurrock Council - working under the auspices of a Strategic Co-ordination Group (SCG) - allowed oil tankers and grocery lorries through but deemed The News delivery vans were not ‘priority traffic’. As a result our loyal readers had no newspaper on Monday.

Portsmouth North MP Penny Mordaunt has pledged to personally raise the matter with Miss Patel and Stephen Morgan has backed The News with his own letter demanding an explanation from the Home Secretary.

The Portsmouth South MP said: ‘It’s outrageous that people in Portsmouth were denied access to the print edition of their local paper. It is a vital source of local news, helps bring our city’s communities together, campaigns on issues of the day and enables political leaders to be held to account over their decisions.

“The right to protest legally is important and must be protected, but so should readers’ access to important local news and community events, which The News helps to provide. The delivery of newspapers is an essential service.”

Ms Mordaunt said she was ‘appalled’ that deliveries of The News had been stopped.

‘Local news is an essential service,’ she added. ‘That needs to be embedded in policing plans. These protesters, who have little care whose lives they disrupt, should also think long and hard about their antics. I’ll be following up with the Home Office and will be supporting The News.’

In his letter to Miss Patel, Mr Waldron called on her to investigate the SPG’s ‘disturbing and misguided’ decision, inform them they had overstepped their authority and give assurances that, in a similar scenario, the decision will not be repeated.