The UK Newspaper Society's lawyers are calling on competition authority Ofcom and the BBC Trust to suspend a public value test as the BBC continues with plans to increase local video offerings on 65 Web sites across the United Kingdom, paidContent reported Sunday.

“The BBC Trust cannot be the chief cheerleader for the BBC, encouraging it to extend local services out of more and more taxpayers' money, at the same time as being the independent regulator determining the public value of those services and their impact on local media” David Newell, director of the Newspaper Society, stated in a press release. “Our legal advice confirms that the Trust and Ofcom are acting in an inappropriate and unlawful manner.”

According to the BBC's proposals, £68 million would be invested into local news video across the BBC's network of sites, which cover 60 regions in the United Kingdom, Journalism.co.uk reported.

The Newspaper Society claims the trust “is failing to act in accordance with its charger obligations and its agreement with the secretary of state,” according to paidContent.

Radio executives have also come out against the BBC's plans, charging them to be “anti-competitive proposals,” said Mark Story, managing director for radio brands at Bauer Radio, according to Telegraph.co.uk.

“We can't sustain the competition posed by £60 million of taxpayers' money without any need to see a return or profit of any kind,” Story told Telegraph.co.uk. “It's a ludicrous amount of money and it seems as though the BBC is trying to kill all local competition.”

In June, the BBC began consulting on the proposals for the new local Web sites and increased local video, with regulator Ofcom in charge of investigating how the new video services would impact local newspapers, radio stations and affiliated online and TV services, BBC news reported at the time.

A spokeswoman for BBC Local told Telegraph.co.uk that “we recognise and are sensitive to the problems faced by the commercial market at this time and our plans have been developed to take account of these issues.”

paidContent's Robert Andrews offered a different point of view on the Newspaper Society's decision to ask its lawyers to write the BBC Trust and Ofcom, stating that “local newspapers are now so intent on scapegoating the proposed increase of video on BBC Local sites for their impending death spiral, they are taking the matter through legal channels.”