The owner of the Daily Mail today agreed the sale of its local newspaper arm in a deal that will create a new force in regional publishing with more than 100 titles.

Daily Mail and General Trust is selling its Northcliffe Media arm for £52.5m to a new joint venture, called Local World, which will also combine the regional newspaper assets of Iliffe News & Media, which owns the Cambridge News.

Trinity Mirror - owner of The Journal, Evening Chronicle and Sunday Sun as well as the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror - will take a 20% stake in Local World for £14.2m, it was nnounced.

The new group - worth around £100m - will include 16 daily titles, 36 paid weekly titles, 40 free weekly titles and two Metro newspaper franchises.

It will also publish a portfolio of 63 local websites, with a monthly audience of more than seven million.

Northcliffe boss Steve Auckland will become chief executive of Local World, with tabloid veteran David Montgomery appointed chairman.