Grange Now: The Free Monthly Newspaper for Grange-over-Sands and the Cartmel Peninsula
Grange Now is a free monthly hyperlocal newspaper serving Grange-over-Sands and the Cartmel Peninsula in Cumbria, England. Founded in 1991, it has covered its small seaside community in extraordinary depth for more than three decades, publishing well over 10,000 stories directly related to its immediate area. Delivered free to readers and supported by local businesses through paid advertising, it is frequently cited as proof that a tightly focused print newspaper can still thrive.
Grange-over-Sands sits on the southern tip of the Cartmel Peninsula, between the Lake District fells and the sands of Morecambe Bay, around seven miles from Windermere. It is a quiet Victorian seaside town, and Grange Now matches that scale: its news is not regional, county-wide or national, but hyperlocal — about this town, its villages, its societies and its people. Its website is grangenow.co.uk, where recent editions are published in digital form.
Overview
Grange Now is a monthly newspaper. That monthly rhythm, combined with free delivery, defines its character. Instead of chasing breaking news, it gathers the month's community life — council and parish matters, school and church reports, society news, letters, events, achievements and local issues — into a single printed package that lands with every reader at the same time.
The figures attached to the title are striking for so small a town. By its 25th anniversary in 2016, Grange Now had published its 300th edition and more than 10,000 stories, and had delivered over 1.5 million copies of the paper, equivalent to roughly 36 million pages. A later edition numbering check confirms the monthly continuity: issue 398 was the November 2024 edition, consistent with a monthly title founded in 1991.
The paper's editor has summarised its formula in three shared features for every story: they were hyperlocal and related to the area, they were delivered to readers for free, and they were supported by local businesses through their paid advertisements.
History
Grange Now was founded in 1991 by Mary Ann Best and Robin Williamson. For its first two decades it established itself as the Cartmel Peninsula's own newspaper, published monthly without interruption — a record that took it to its 300th edition in 2016.
A new chapter began in 2013, when Chris Plumb took over as editor and publisher. Plumb inherited a small operation: when he took over, he had just two part-time staff. Rather than cut the title back, he expanded the model, using Grange Now as the foundation for a small group of sister monthlies across the South Lakes.
The 25th anniversary in 2016 was marked publicly in the regional press trade. The front cover of the 300th edition was chosen after a competition among readers — a characteristically participatory touch for a paper whose content depends heavily on reader involvement. Coverage of the anniversary in HoldtheFrontPage and Prolific North presented Grange Now as a counter-example to the narrative of print decline.
Ownership and Publisher
Grange Now is independently published, with Chris Plumb serving as both editor and publisher since 2013. That combined role is common in hyperlocal publishing, where the person responsible for the journalism is also responsible for the advertising, production and delivery that pay for it.
Under Plumb, the publishing operation grew from two part-time staff to more than a dozen people involved across its three papers. The team includes those who gather and write community content, sell and design advertising, and organise the printing and free distribution that get each edition into homes.
The business model is transparent and traditional: readers pay nothing, and local businesses pay for advertisements. The loyalty within that model is notable — at the 25th anniversary, eight advertisers had been in almost every issue of Grange Now dating back to 1991, a quarter-century of continuous support from local firms.
Sister Titles: Windermere Now and Ulverston Now
Since 2013 the Grange Now publisher has developed two sister titles on the same template. Windermere Now was launched in 2014, extending the format to the Windermere area. Ulverston Now followed in 2016, launched earlier in the anniversary year.
Together, the three titles printed a total of 27,000 copies each month at the time of the 25th anniversary, with the August issues between them accounting for almost one million pages of print. Their combined coverage area includes the majority of homes in the South Lakes outside Kendal.
The expansion matters because it shows the Grange model was not a one-town accident. The same recipe — free monthly print, hyperlocal content, community contributions and local advertising — was judged transferable to neighbouring South Lakes towns, each with its own title and identity rather than a shared generic edition.
Coverage and Content
The pages of Grange Now are used, in its editor's description, to celebrate volunteers, to promote events, to applaud local heroes, to celebrate artists of all ages, to congratulate high achievers and to tackle a huge range of issues. There has, he noted, been drama, good news and bad news, and some big stories alongside many smaller ones — all of them rooted in the Grange and Cartmel area.
In practice that means society, school and church reports sit alongside letters and comments from readers, community campaigns, planning and local-service issues, profiles of residents, and previews and reviews of events. The reader contribution pipeline is essential: readers supply involvement, comments, letters and reports, and the paper knits them into a monthly record of the town.
The November 2024 edition, published online as a full digital issue, shows the continuing format: a substantial monthly paper carrying local advertising from firms across Grange, Ulverston, Windermere, Barrow and Lancaster, with editorial contact details and deadlines published openly for contributors — the next deadline falling in mid-November for the following edition.
Community Role
Grange Now's community role goes beyond reporting. By giving volunteers, schools, churches, societies and artists a regular printed platform, it helps organise community life: events are promoted before they happen and celebrated afterwards, achievements are recognised publicly, and local issues can be debated in letters and articles that the whole town reads simultaneously.
The reader competition to choose the 300th edition's front cover illustrates the relationship. Readers are not treated as a passive audience or as data for advertisers; they are participants whose photographs, reports and opinions are the raw material of the paper.
In a small town where many residents are older and not dependent on social media, a free printed monthly also performs an inclusion function. Everyone receives the same civic information at the same time, regardless of broadband access, digital skills or willingness to pay for news.
Print and Digital Presence
Print is the heart of Grange Now. Its editor's anniversary message was explicit that the title is proving print is not dead, and that readers want hyperlocal news delivered in a successful printed format. Free physical distribution is what guarantees the universal reach on which both its community role and its advertising proposition depend.
Alongside print, Grange Now maintains a website at grangenow.co.uk, where full recent editions are posted as digital files — issue 398 for November 2024 among them — allowing readers to catch up online, share editions beyond the delivery area, and check contact details and copy deadlines. The published contact for editorial is through the paper's info email address and a Grange-over-Sands telephone number, keeping contributor access direct and local.
The digital presence is best understood as a complement, not a replacement. The website archives and extends the monthly paper; it does not attempt to turn Grange Now into a rolling online news service competing with regional publishers.
Audience and Reach
The audience for Grange Now is the community of Grange-over-Sands and the surrounding Cartmel Peninsula. Within the three-title group, the combined monthly print run of 27,000 copies covers most homes in the South Lakes outside Kendal, giving these small monthlies a household penetration that regional dailies and weeklies rarely achieve in the same territory.
Cumulative reach tells the longer story: over 1.5 million copies of Grange Now alone had been delivered by 2016, equivalent to roughly 36 million pages placed in local homes. For advertisers, many of them small local firms, that reliability — every month, every home, a trusted local title — explains advertising relationships lasting since 1991.
For readers, the appeal is relevance. Every story is about their town or its immediate surroundings, written for them rather than for a distant regional audience of which Grange is a small part.
Notable People
Three names define Grange Now's history. Founders Mary Ann Best and Robin Williamson created the paper in 1991 and built the monthly format that still endures. Chris Plumb, who took over as editor and publisher in 2013, modernised and expanded the operation, launching the Windermere and Ulverston sister titles and growing the team from two part-time staff to more than a dozen people across the group.
Plumb is also the paper's public voice, quoted in trade coverage explaining its philosophy and thanking readers, contributors, deliverers and advertisers at its milestones. His anniversary comments — thanking readers for their involvement, comments, letters and society, school and church reports, and the local businesses for loyal support — capture the collaborative authorship on which the title depends.
Recent Developments
Grange Now has continued monthly publication well beyond its 300th edition, reaching issue 398 in November 2024, with editions published online as well as delivered in print. That continuity, more than three decades after its founding, places it among the survivors of British hyperlocal publishing — a sector with many launches and many closures.
Its significance is increasingly as a model. Trade coverage of its anniversary framed Grange Now as evidence that a free, advertising-supported, hyperlocal print monthly can work when the geography is tight, the community supplies much of the content, and distribution truly reaches every home. In Grange-over-Sands, that model has now served the same town since 1991.
