Cambridge Independent: Iliffe Media's Award-Winning City Weekly
The Cambridge Independent is a weekly newspaper and news website covering Cambridge and its surrounding region in Cambridgeshire, England, published online at cambridgeindependent.co.uk. Launched in September 2016 as the founding title of the modern Iliffe Media, it was a rarity in twenty-first-century Britain: a brand-new paid-for weekly newspaper, created from scratch for a city already served by a long-established daily. Within little more than six months it had been named the best weekly newspaper in the United Kingdom, the first of a run of national awards that made it one of the most decorated local titles of its era.
Edited from the start by Paul Brackley, a former editor of the rival Cambridge News, the Independent set out to be a fresh, modern, positive-thinking paper for one of Britain's fastest-growing and most innovative cities — a mission reflected in its strong science, technology and business coverage alongside community news, sport and campaigning journalism.
Overview
The Cambridge Independent is a paid-for weekly newspaper supported by its website and an app for iOS and Android. At the time of its first national award it was a premium product of 112 pages, sold for £1, and praised by judges for combining contemporary magazine-style design with strong content and crisp print production. That positioning — a substantial, well-designed weekly that readers pay for — set it apart in a market dominated by free sheets and shrinking paginations.
Its patch is Cambridge and the villages and towns around it: a city defined by its university, its hospitals and its science and technology cluster, but also by rapid population growth, housing pressure and the everyday concerns of families, schools and businesses. The Independent covers all of that, while placing unusual emphasis on the research and innovation economy that makes Cambridge nationally significant.
History and Founding
The Independent was born from the return of one of British publishing's oldest families to local newspapers. The Iliffe family's publishing heritage dates back to 1879, and at its height the family business owned leading regional titles including the Birmingham Mail and the Coventry Telegraph. The sale of Iliffe News and Media to the Local World consortium in 2013 appeared to end that involvement. Instead, Edward Iliffe established a new company, Iliffe Media, in 2016, and the new company began publishing the Cambridge Independent in September of that year.
Launching a paid-for weekly in 2016, when local titles were closing across the country, was a deliberate statement of belief in print. The paper was conceived as a fresh, modern, positive-thinking newspaper that informs and entertains, produced locally by a dedicated team. The response, by the editor's later account, exceeded expectations: readers and advertisers backed the title from its first editions, and it quickly established itself as a fixture of city life.
Ownership and Business Model
The Cambridge Independent is owned by Iliffe Media, the family-owned publisher established by Edward Iliffe in 2016 and headquartered in the East of England. After launching with the Independent, Iliffe expanded rapidly: in February 2017 it bought 13 titles in East Anglia and the East Midlands from Johnston Press, and it went on to acquire the KM Media Group in Kent and other titles, building a portfolio of more than 30 titles and magazines within a few years.
The Independent's own model combines print copy sales — notably, against industry trends, it has reported selling more printed copies year on year in recent years — with advertising, a growing digital subscription offer, a newsletter audience and an expanding website. Its publisher's stated philosophy is that a family-owned business should invest in local journalism and produce everything locally, a principle its editor has repeatedly emphasised when describing the title's independence. The title is regulated through Iliffe Media's membership of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation.
Coverage and Content
The Independent's coverage spans the full range of city journalism: breaking news, council and courts, schools and charities, business, property, sport, arts and what's-on, together with in-depth features and comment. It has given voices to people across the community, campaigned on issues it judged to matter, and championed the work of local charities, schools, businesses and other organisations. Among its most noted editions was a special tribute to Professor Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge physicist, published after his death in 2018.
Science coverage is a signature strength. The editor himself writes the paper's weekly science pages, engaging directly with the city's research centres and technology businesses, and business coverage is similarly prominent in a city whose economy is built on innovation. Events have become part of the content model too: the Cambridge Independent Science and Technology Awards were launched in 2017 to celebrate the region's research and business prowess, and business awards have followed the same pattern, with the editor chairing judging panels and hosting the ceremonies.
Audience and Reach
The Independent's audience is the city and region of Cambridge — residents, commuters, the university and hospital communities, and the science and business sectors — reached through print, the website, the app, digital subscriptions and newsletters. Its commercial premise is that a growing, prosperous city can sustain a quality paid weekly, and its reported growth in print sales, digital subscriptions and website reach in recent years, bucking national trends, is the evidence its publisher offers for that premise.
Milestones mark the title's establishment in the city: its 200th issue in July 2020, marked with a special edition reviewing its campaigns and biggest stories, and its 300th edition less than six years after launch, when the editor thanked readers and advertisers and noted that the paper continued to attract new readers. For a title launched into a market with an entrenched daily competitor, that steady accumulation of loyal readers is central to its story.
Editorial Voice
The Independent describes itself as proudly independent, and its voice follows the founding concept: positive-thinking without being uncritical, informative and entertaining, with trusted content and, by its editor's account, some humour too. It campaigns — on community facilities, local services and city issues — and it uses special editions and front-page treatments to mark the moments that matter to the city, of which the Hawking tribute is the outstanding example.
The design is part of the voice. Judges at the 2017 newsawards praised the potent combination of contemporary magazine-style design, strong content and crisp printing that made the paper feel like a premium product. Subsequent judging panels continued to reward the title, suggesting that the formula — substantial pagination, high production values and confident local journalism — retained its impact long after the novelty of the launch had passed.
Digital Presence
Alongside print, the Independent publishes continuously at cambridgeindependent.co.uk and through an app for iOS and Android launched with the paper. In recent years the publisher has emphasised the growth of digital subscriptions, newsletter audiences and website reach as print sales have also grown — a dual-track performance that is unusual in local media, where digital growth typically accompanies print decline.
The website carries the paper's news, sport, business, science and community coverage for the Cambridge region, and serves the wider Iliffe portfolio model in which strong local brands anchor digital audiences. The title's presence within Iliffe's promotions and awards activity — including its business awards for the Cambridge region — adds further digital touchpoints through which readers and local companies engage with the brand between weekly editions.
Notable People
Paul Brackley, the Independent's founding editor and Iliffe Media's editorial director, is the title's defining figure. An English graduate of Oxford University, he trained as a journalist, worked in a series of roles on the Hertfordshire Mercury before becoming its editor, and then spent eight years editing a daily title — he was editor of the Cambridge News before helping to establish Iliffe Media and launch the Independent in 2016. He writes the paper's science pages and much of its business coverage, co-edits Iliffe's quarterly iQ business magazine, and founded the title's Science and Technology Awards in 2017, chairing their judging panel.
Behind him stands Edward Iliffe, the chairman who established Iliffe Media and staked the family's return to local publishing on this launch. The Iliffe family's longer history in regional media — and senior figures such as David Fordham, the former Iliffe News and Media chief executive who led later acquisitions — form the backdrop to the Independent's creation, but it is Brackley's editorship that has shaped the paper's content and reputation day to day.
Awards and Recognition
The Independent's honours began remarkably early. In 2017, little more than six months after launch, it won Weekly Newspaper of the Year at the newsawards, the national awards for print and digital production excellence. It then kept winning: the title collected the Weekly Newspaper of the Year award repeatedly in successive years — four consecutive wins by 2021 and a fifth successive win reported in 2023 — an unprecedented run for a new title. In 2024 it added News Brand of the Year at the Regional Press Awards, recognition that spans its print and digital journalism.
Its publisher credits Brackley's leadership for that success, noting the combination of growing print sales, digital subscriptions and audience that accompanied the trophies. For the wider industry, the Independent became a reference point in debates about the future of local news: evidence that a well-resourced, locally produced paid weekly could still be launched, and could thrive, in a major British city.
Recent Developments
In recent years the Independent has focused on sustaining its dual growth — more printed copies sold year on year for a second successive year, alongside expanding digital subscriptions, newsletters and website reach, according to its publisher. Its awards and events activity has expanded from science and technology into business, mirroring the sectors that drive Cambridge's economy. Within Iliffe Media, which has continued to acquire and launch titles, the Independent remains the flagship: the paper the modern company was founded to publish, and the clearest expression of its belief in the future of local newspaper publishing across all formats.
