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Speaking at the AOP's Digital Publishing Summit, the chief executive of the media group pulled no punches as she rallied against the initiative, announced by the BBC at the start of summer.

While welcoming genuine competition between publishers as "a good thing", Bailey said the distortion of £68m of public money represented a threat to the future of a vibrant, growing and diverse commercial sector.
 
Bailey said: "Commercial media companies have invested, and are indeed still investing heavily, in the development of local digital services. These are embryonic businesses created by companies who have to assess the risk involved in every penny spent on new ventures."

"In short, this [BBC] proposal is a threat to the development and diversity of the local media sector online and potentially to its print-based cousins. It is anti-competitive, unnecessary and will waste public money replicating existing growing commercial offerings."

The proposal for an on-demand, local video service for online and mobile, spanning 60 UK regions, is currently undergoing an approval process led by the BBC Trust.

Bailey, who has been a dissenting voice from the outset, also warned that the UK's regulators are stuck in the mindset of the 1970s - claiming they do not understand convergence and the idea of digital being at the heart of everything.

Earlier in her opening address, Bailey admitted to being excited about Trinity's own foray into hyper local sites; which have enabled them to drill deep down into communities at postcode level, providing multimedia content created by local people, for local people.

The latest development, in live beta today, is a map-based news service with geo-tagged news content. "Our goal is to be an indispensable guide for the community they [the local sites] serve," said Bailey.

Underlying her objections, the Trinity boss said the BBC plans affect real people and real jobs, adding: "We all love the BBC but I ask you this, would we really love it quite so much if it was the only thing? There's a real threat to diversity and plurality of voice... we have to take this very, very seriously."