The editor of the Salisbury Journal said web traffic has been “booming” in the weeks following the nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the city earlier this month.

Joe Riddle said the title, which was first to break news of the incident, had received more than 500,000 page views for online articles about the attack on 4 March and its ongoing investigation.

He said staff on the Newsquest-owned weekly have been covering developments “around the clock” and have been working “even longer hours than usual”.