North West Enquirer - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The North West Enquirer was a short-lived weekly regional tabloid newspaper covering the North West

North West England

North West England, informally known as The North West, is one of the nine official regions of England.North West England had a 2006 estimated population of 6,853,201 the third most populated region after London and the South East...

region of England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Its circulation area encompassed the counties and areas of Cumbria

Cumbria

Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...

, Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

, Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...

, Merseyside

Merseyside

Merseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1,365,900. It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the Mersey Estuary, and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral, and the city of Liverpool...

and Cheshire

Cheshire

Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

, as well as parts of Stoke-on-Trent

Stoke-on-Trent

Stoke-on-Trent , also called The Potteries is a city in Staffordshire, England, which forms a linear conurbation almost 12 miles long, with an area of . Together with the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme Stoke forms The Potteries Urban Area...

and North Wales

North Wales

North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...

. Its first edition was published on 27 April 2006 and it ran for twenty-one issues, the final edition being published on 14 September.

The Enquirer was a bold attempt to create a newspaper which had more of a focus on quality writing and analysis than the main local dailies such as the Manchester Evening News

Manchester Evening News

The Manchester Evening News is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom. It is published every day except Sunday and is owned by Trinity Mirror plc following its sale by Guardian Media Group in early 2010. It has an average daily circulation of 90,973 copies...

but with a more regional outlook than the national press could offer. The paper was aimed at the AB demographic group, high earners with large amounts of disposable income. While many local newspapers satisfied themselves with more populist human-interest stories, the Enquirer contained a large amount of arts and political coverage, with weekly columns exploring the culture of the region from names including Flic Everett and Anthony H Wilson. News coverage was of an investigative, in-depth style.

However, the paper quickly got into difficulties, falling short of a sales target of 15,000 in its first four months and laying off several journalists in August http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,,1836588,00.html. The company attempted to re-finance, but a change in the conditions of a £200,000 funding package led to the Enquirer being placed into administration on 20 September, one day before it was due to publish its twenty-second issue http://media.guardian.co.uk/city/story/0,,1876221,00.html. Twenty-six redundancies were made, with the company unable to pay staff for the month of September, leaving many financially unsettled. The following day, this message was placed on the North West Enquirer's web site by former editor Robert Waterhouse http://www.nw-enquirer.co.uk/the_enquirer_suspends_publication_.html:

Very sadly, after just 21 issues, we have been forced to suspend publication of The Enquirer because the funding package we were negotiating with regional venture capital funds fell apart at the last moment. The company is now in administration. There may yet be a rescue bid. Let’s just hope something transpires.

As editor, I’d like to thank readers for your very generous response to our website. We know that The Enquirer is well read around the world, and the number of hits was growing fast week by week. Thank you again.

As of May 2007, the Enquirer's web site had been replaced with an ISP holding page explaining that the site was inactive.

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