NEWSAGENTS in Craven claim they are being driven out of business by excessive delivery charges.

Petitions are being drawn up in protest at the rise in the charges demanded by wholesalers who deliver national newspapers and magazines to each outlet.

Mike Hill, who owns the newsagency on Sunmoor Drive in Skipton and is president of the Keighley branch of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents, said the charges were a threat to the future of the traditional newsagent.

He said two newsagents had closed in Skipton in recent years and others had disappeared in rural areas.

"We've worked out that to pay the delivery charges, I have to sell 497 copies of The Sun each week before I start making a profit," said Mr Hill.

He said if he bought goods from any wholesaler, delivery charges were included.

"If I buy a crate of wine from Milton Keynes, I don't pay extra to have it delivered. If I did I could go to somewhere else, but the wholesalers have a monopoly.

"Round here we have to buy our papers from Menzies. We can't go to another firm because they won't deliver, there is no competition."

Mr Hill said the situation could be resolved by the publishers simply putting a penny on the cost of each paper or magazine to cover delivery to the outlets.

The delivery charges have been around for some time, but Mr Hill said they had gone up by £6 last year and £2 this year without any consultation.

"Newsagents' shops are closing and if nothing is done about these delivery charges then soon there will be none left," he said.

The newsagents are fighting back by putting petitions in their shops and have now called for an investigation into the practice by the Office of Fair Trading.

Iain Callaghan, managing director of Menzies Distribution, said delivery prices had gone up following an investigation by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission in 1993.

Arrangements for levying delivery charges to new newsagents put them at a disadvantage to established outlets whose rates were lower, so Menzies came up with a way to balance the charges.

This resulted in 49 per cent of customers receiving reduced rates, two per cent experiencing no charge and 49 per cent facing increases. This was introduced in March 2002 and the increases phased in to March 2003.

Mr Callaghan said he had received a number of letters from customers in Yorkshire saying there had been no increase in the cost of newspapers and magazines, but delivery charges had gone up.

But he said during the last 12 months cover prices had gone up and that the Newsagents Federation was pushing publishers to put the costs up further and offset the cost of delivery.

Mr Callaghan added that it was the newspaper publishers who set the cover price for their titles, which retailers could not alter.

The Craven Herald and other Newsquest titles are delivered by our own vans. No charge is made to the newsagents.