LevellerLive

This month has felt like a bit of a roller coaster. One minute we are to publish, the next we cannot. Finally after last night’s address to the nation by the Prime Minister we have clarity. That said, everything we are telling you is true today. Obviously the situation may change, but we wanted to let you know where things were.

The Leveller® will be published in April. We have had it confirmed by both our MP, David Warburton and through his help, a government minister that we can (and should) produce and distribute the paper. We want to express our gratitude to our MP who was available very late last night to help us out with this.

We now want to tell you exactly what we are able to do.

Where to get a copy

Many of our regular outlets are now closed. However we can distribute through food stores, newsagents, Post Offices and petrol stations. This does mean we can get papers out to most communities in the areas we serve if not in quite so many outlets.

Subscribers will also receive a copy as usual.

In Langport where we have door to door distribution that too will carry on as usual. We have checked with the World Health Organisation and for government advice with David Warburton. The clear advice is that there is no reason not to distribute and minimal harm can come from the process. After all many communities are leafleting their citizens as a means of communication.

In addition we will be publishing the whole of our April edition as a pdf online, so those who cannot get hold of a paper edition will still be able to read it.

We are also looking at opportunities to put the paper into food stores which are not a normal part of our distribution.

In which respect we’d like to say a big thank you to Adam, store manager at Tesco in Langport for agreeing to take a display bin with The Leveller during the medical emergency. We are very grateful for his/their support.

Support for our advertisers

Those advertisers that have stayed with us in April we will support by giving extra coverage. We intend to place their ads on our social media outlets and possibly our website too – we are still looking at this. But we will do our best to give them a bit extra as a thank you.

Our steps to be safe

To reassure you that we are taking every step to do our bit during this crisis, we have taken the following measures. All communication between the team at Leveller Towers is now by telephone or email and there are no meetings. Only the editor is accessing the office to pick up post and deal with essential administration.

When our hard copy is delivered, we will arrange for the boxes to be dropped off on pallets outside Leveller Towers. Then our distributors will arrive at 30 minute intervals to pick up their boxes. This means there will be minimal human interaction in the process.

Thank you

We have had a tremendous amount of support over the past few weeks which has been very humbling. From people taking out subscriptions, donations, advertisers going ahead with adverts even when their own businesses may be shut. And people with no specific reason to advertise doing so anyway.

Thank you to all our readers, distributors, advertisers and outlets for your show of support and loyalty. Please stay safe, follow government advice and help us all get through the crisis as fast as possible.