Dale Vince, the green energy entrepreneur and Labour donor, is planning to transform a small north London newspaper group into a city-wide news operation. The Camden New Journal, Islington Tribune, and Westminster Extra — an 18-person operation that has been burning through cash reserves — would gain open-ended financial backing from Vince, who says he will invest "whatever it takes." The plan centres on expanding the Westminster Extra into a London-wide edition, potentially rebranded as the "north, south, east and Westminster edition." Vince also wants to take the group properly digital. He frames the move as a response to London's status as one of the UK's worst local news deserts, a characterisation backed by the closure of the Evening Standard's daily edition in 2024 and the failures of earlier freesheets like The London Paper and London Lite. Vince is explicit about his ideological motivation. "I'm motivated by the bias of media in our country more broadly — the rightwing bias — and trying to do something about that," he told the Guardian. He already runs an online publication called Babelfish and says he would write op-eds for the Camden titles but would be a "hands-off" investor. He describes the CNJ group as already fitting within his worldview, with "no kind of culture clash." The structural problem is real. London, a city of 9 million, has seen major newsrooms close or shrink drastically over two decades. Subscription-based startups like Jim Waterson's London Centric have gained traction — it now has more than 5,000 paying subscribers — but Waterson himself admits the model supports only "a tiny operation run from a kitchen table." The funding gap between what local journalism costs and what readers will pay remains enormous. The tension is between genuine need and the patron model's inherent fragility. Vince is not doing this for business reasons — he says so directly. That honesty is refreshing but also the diagnosis: the operation depends on a single wealthy individual's continued willingness and ability to subsidise it. The CNJ group already spent a chunk of its cash reserves in the last year. Vince's backing solves the immediate crisis but replaces market dependency with patron dependency. The "hands-off" claim deserves scrutiny not because Vince is lying but because the structure makes editorial independence contingent on goodwill rather than governance. He has already said the CNJ's worldview aligns with his own, which means the independence hasn't been tested. A patron who agrees with the editorial line is indistinguishable from a patron who controls it — until they disagree. What London gets, if this works, is more reporters covering a city that desperately needs them. What it doesn't get is a sustainable business model. The question for local journalism isn't whether wealthy benefactors will step in — several have — but whether the resulting outlets can survive the benefactor's departure, a change of heart, or a financial reversal. Vince's plan is generous and needed. It is not, by itself, a rescue.
