Johnston Press is to drop the paywalls it implemented on a number of its local newspapers from next week, Press Gazette understands

The regional publisher erected barriers on two of its Scottish and four of its English weekly newspaper websites in November as part of a trial to “get an understanding of what the customer dynamic is around paid-for content”.

The scheme saw the publisher trial different access methods across the six papers; reader registration, uploading “teaser” stories which referred readers back to full versions in the print edition, and paid-for access.