READERS from across the region have given The Northern Echo's new compact size an overwhelming thumbs up.

Readers, new and old, gave their reaction after the newspaper's new Saturday format was unveiled.

At Darlington railway station, friends Rob Carroll, 21, Lee Danton, 22 and Rob Dashwood, 23, from Richmond, read The Echo while waiting for a train to take them to Middlesbrough's match at Arsenal.

Mr Dashwood, 23, said: "It is definitely easier to handle. I used to get the job section and it was a nightmare."

Colin Peel, 60, and Trisha Brady, 60, from Darlington, were heading to London.

Mr Peel said: "I like both styles, it depends on what I am doing, but this new size if definitely easier when you're travelling."

In the town centre, taxi driver Alan Wall, 59, liked the fact he could read the handy-sized Echo inside his cab.

He said: "The first thing I thought when I got it this morning, was that it reminds me of the Evening Standard, in London. I like that."

In The Diner, in Darlington's covered market, Janet Monkman, 83, said: "I like it a lot. I would like it to be this size every day."

However. her friend Hilda Stockton, 86, said: "I definitely prefer the big one and I have been getting this paper for 59 years."

David King, 78, from Newcastle, buys The Northern Echo every day. "I have been reading it for years and I like this size - it is better than the bigger one," he said.

Josiane Marets, 49, who works in The Diner, but is from France, said: "The big version is very awkward and you can't read it on a bus, so it puts me off. This is much better."

Around the corner in the Market Place, trader Marko Karadzic, 43, from Aysgarth, North Yorkshire, said: "Broadsheets are a bit old hat, this is better."

Editor Peter Barron said: "We are delighted with the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the first Saturday compact."