The Office of Fair Trading has cleared Trinity Mirror's purchase of GMG regional newspapers, including the Manchester Evening News.

OFT chose to look at the deal, which saw Trinity acquire 32 of GMG Regional Media's newspapers in March, to check whether it would result in a "substantial lessening of the competition" in the regional newspaper market. Trinity Mirror has existing newspapers in some of the same regions as titles it has acquired from GMG.

But in a statement to the stock exchange OFT said that based on the information currently available to it, it would not refer the deal to the Competition Commission.

Trinity Mirror agreed to pay £7.4m for all but two of GMG Regional Media's newspapers, and the deal also released GMG from a lavish £37.4m contract to use Trinity's printing presses.

Beleaguered Manchester television station Channel M, still under the ownership of GMG, was excluded from the deal and has since suffered major cutbacks to its staff and programming.