Hi I’m Nicola I’m the deputy editor of the Lancashire Post.

I live in Walton-le-Dale where I am currently working from home, just left of the ironing board, amid the washing pile and worryingly close to a ladder, but incredibly grateful to be working at all in these difficult times.

I’ve been a journalist for 20 years in the Red Rose county and I’m here to say that my locally-based team needs you to subscribe to lep.co.uk urgently. 

This is brutal honesty from me at a time when many locally-based businesses in Lancashire, just like us, now know what is coming with a new lockdown. We have been here for 134 years and we want to continue to be there for you.

From just £1 a month initially (£7.99 per month after two months - or what I like to mention is the price of two generic takeaway coffees) you can be here for us too plus have premier lounge, ad-lite, access to our website with all sorts of exclusive content including a fantastic puzzles offering and access to the digital edition of the newspaper.

As we prepare to launch a huge effort to support our fellow businesses and communities throughout this next month (watch this space), we urge you to let us keep you informed, up to date and keep the focus on Lancashire.

It’s where we all live, it’s where we all work, it's where many of us went to school (I went to Balshaw's High School and Runshaw College in Leyland - you?) and we do not want to see more damage to the local economy. In short, as many places where we sell the newspaper close, advertising revenues plummet to nothing, and as many of you go online we need you to subscribe to lep.co.uk to keep US going as well.

There are no magic beans for us in Covid times either. 

The thing is local news takes money to produce. We have to pay the salaries of our staff who live here and raise their families here. We do understand there is always the option of free national 'one size fits all' news generated from London and even some free local, unsubstantiated, bits and pieces available via social media and your own feeds. We get that. We understand you might not like everything you read - who does? And politically-motivated rhetoric tells you journalists are horrible - I can assure you we are very nice (honest) and simply after the facts on your behalf. 

But our fully legally and ethically-trained reporters will continue sitting through long, frustrating, local court cases, for days so they can tell you in one sentence what has happened. They will wade through hundreds of pages of council documents to find out how your money is being spent, they will challenge authority for the real information and hold it to account, however unpopular that makes us.  We will share nostalgia from our extensive and exclusive archives and celebrate your achievements and concerns. Our sports desk know local teams like the back of their hands and will share through the light and dark times. We will probe, we will question and we will listen. 

Of course will try to be first with stories but not at the expense of it being inaccurate or pointless click bait. We would rather be second and more thorough  - than wrong. And if we ever get anything not quite right (we are human after all) we will clarify and rectify with humility.  We will share stories of hope, of joy, of sadness and inspiration from our community. Most of our news is human and it is positive, not everything is breaking news.  We hunt those stories out and despite what people tend to think, represent the majority of our content.

We pledge to do everything we can to keep you up to speed on Covid-19 and we will contribute to share those little bits of news critical every day.  And we will continue to celebrate you, your efforts to support the NHS and charity, celebrate your amazing little ones and mark your significant milestones. But most of all we will campaign tirelessly for you, not least because we ARE you. We are members of Lancashire communities, our office is based in Fulwood, Preston, but our reporters are currently working from their home’s in Penwortham, Preston, Ashton, Leyland, Chorley, Longridge, New Longton, Garstang, Buckshaw Village, Lancaster - the list goes in.

We want Lancashire’s communities to flourish - we live here and we want to be able to continue bringing you the best content and be #thereforyou. 

I've never written a letter like this before. But now is the time. So if you can, please subscribe to lep.co.uk

You can email me at [email protected]