A campaign launched this week to save newsagents across the UK has been backed by MP David Heathcoat-Amory.

He was at the launch of the Save Britain's Newsagents campaign in Westminster and later visited Griggs's newsagents' in Queen Street.

The campaigners are calling on the Office of Fair Trading to investigate contracts in the news and distribution industry after it decided last year that increased competition in the distribution market would benefit consumers, yet within months two regional monopolies emerged, sweeping away almost all other competition.

The MP met Joe and Christina Borastero at Griggs's and said he had long been a supporter of keeping shops in the high street and had campaigned to save post offices in his constituency.

He said: "Independent shops give colour and character to a shopping street and I would hate it if all our towns became dominated by the national retail chains.

"Independent newsagents are under great pressure from rising costs and the danger of a monopoly developing in wholesale distribution."

"I will be raising this in the House of Commons because I do not want our independent newsagents to go the way of small post offices."

Joe and Christina told Mr Heathcoat-Amory of their concerns for the future, not only for their business but also for the hundreds of independent newsagents throughout Britain.

Mr Borastero added: "What was once an uphill struggle can now be likened to climbing a cliff and desperately holding on to the edge of a precipice. We are becoming ever more aware that so many of our colleagues have already been forced over the edge."

Last year, 510 newsagents went bankrupt and 482 closed in 2007.