Hopes for smooth delivery of free paper

By SIMON HENDERY

Last week's launch of a free Auckland-wide newspaper was plagued by delivery problems, but publisher Lucas Bunt hopes the second issue of the Weekend Telegraph will reach readers today.

Bunt, a former Papakura district councillor and mayoral candidate, said he was the sole backer of the weekly paper, which had a print run of 219,000 and was being circulated between Torbay and Mercer.

After meeting the company contracted to deliver the paper, he had "ironed out" problems which led to a large number of papers not making it into letterboxes last week.

The eight-page paper is the first foray into publishing for Bunt, who has a background in sales and marketing.

While the first issue contained contributions from Act leader Richard Prebble and Auckland Mayor John Banks, Bunt said the paper had no political affiliation.

He declined to say how much he had invested in the venture, but said the first edition had been well received and he was working to increase the number of pages to 12.