AT a gathering of local newspaper editors at 10 Downing Street last week, David Cameron called on the regional press to get behind the Olympics.

The Games were good for local businesses which had won contracts; good for local athletes who had made it into Team GB; and good for local communities which could share the feelgood factor.

I agree wholeheartedly and The Northern Echo, along with other provincial papers, has been doing its best to capture the Olympic spirit.

But today I have received notification of new legal guidance from LOCOG, the 2012 Olympic Committee, on what we can and can't do with the Olympics branding.

The guidance includes a tightening of the restrictions over any sponsorship of an Olympics editorial supplement or column.

This would be a breach of the Olympics "association right" and, therefore, unlawful, even though it would be presented as sponsorship of our editorial coverage, not the Games themselves.

In other words, if The Northern Echo published an Olympics supplement and had "in association with Clearview Double Glazing" on the front page, we could be taken to court.

I fully appreciate the need for the Olympic organisers to protect the interests of their official global sponsors who pay millions to be directly associated with the greatest sporting event on earth.

But surely it is going too far to prevent local newspapers from giving local companies the opportunity to sponsor Olympic coverage which is deemed to play such an important part in engaging communities the length and breadth of Britain.

Local newspapers need commercial support to pay for the extra pages required to promote the Olympics properly. Granted, conventional advertising around the editorial is allowed (we think), but sponsorship is a particularly effective way of generating revenue - and that is being disallowed.

It seems to me that Britain wants it all ways when it comes to the local press. The Prime Minister urges us to make our readers feel part of London 2012, but woe betide those of us who dare to get our coverage sponsored on a purely local level.

Common sense might prevail in the end - but who's going to take that chance with the world's top lawyers hovering?

It feels a bit like being asked to join a race with our legs tied together.