GREENWICH Council looks set to continue publishing its weekly newspaper, Greenwich Time, despite a government crackdown on council publications.

Council officers have prepared a report in response to guidelines from the Department for Communities and Local Government which say councils should not publish their own newspapers more than four times a year.

The tightening of rules for council newspapers was initiated by the Secretary of State for Local Government, Eric Pickles, who singled Greenwich Time out for criticism.

He told Greenwich.co.uk last year, “Councils should be focusing resources on frontline services, not running one-sided Town Hall papers that threaten the genuine local press. ‘Greenwich Time’ is one of the most blatant examples of this practice that I’ve seen, and demonstrates why tightening the rules is so necessary.”

But Greenwich Council officers believe they can demonstrate continuing with a weekly newspaper would actually SAVE money. Their cost analysis claims that switching from a weekly to a quarterly publication would see the net cost of the paper per year leap from £170,000 to £2,328,760 because of the loss of third party advertising.

The report says that Greenwich Time doesn’t compete for the same advertising as local newspapers because it doesn’t “accept advertising from escort services, massage parlours and chat lines.”

It also says that Greenwich Council would need to  advertise its statutory public notices “in at least two commercial newspapers, such as the Mercury and the News Shopper, to achieve anything close to the reach of GT”, which is delivered across the entire borough.

Some changes have been made to the paper already in response to the Code of Conduct. The Council’s logo now appears on the frontpage and the strap line explicitly mentions Greenwich Council. It has also dropped TV listings and the crossword from its pages.

Cabinet members will consider the report by council staff at next Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting.

TWO athletes booked their place at next year’s Olympics after taking gold in the UPIM Modern Pentathlon World Cup at the weekend.

Robert Kasza, 25, of Hungary won the men’s event on Saturday with Great Britain’s Nick Woodbridge also on the podium for a bronze medal. Britain’s Jamie Cooke, cheered on by his vocal supporters in the stands, came ninth after having smashed the world record for pentathlon swimming earlier in the day.

25-year-old Lena Schoneborn from Germany, currently World number one, was first across on the finishing line yesterday afternoon in the women’s event. Great Britain’s Mhairi Spence, Heather Fell and Freyja Prentice finished fifth, seventh and twelfth respectively.

The Modern Pentathlon, which was held as part of the London Prepares series of Olympic test events, sees competitors take on swimming, fencing, horse riding, pistol shooting and running.

The swimming and fencing stages of the World Cup were held at Crystal Palace with athletes moving across to Greenwich Park for the final phase.

See more pictures from the men’s and women’s Modern Pentathlon.

The Greenwich Park Eventing Invitational was won by Great Britain’s Piggy French yesterday afternoon.

French, riding DHI Topper W, led the field after the first two stages and a clear run of the show jumping course sealed her win.

Germany’s Michael Jung took the silver and Pippa Funnel of Great Britain won the bronze medal. The medals were presented by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall.

The Greenwich Park Eventing Invitational was the first of the London Prepares series of test events in preparation for next year’s Olympics.

The next of the test events will be the Modern Pentathlon UIPM World Cup Final, which takes place at Crystal Palace and in Greenwich Park this weekend. 36 men and 36 women will take part with automatic qualification for next year’s Olympics awarded to the winners.

See more photos from the showjumping stage of the Eventing Invitational.