Fair point. Actually, I live in a rural area where there are no free sheets at all delivered as the producers don't think it is worth delivering to a village with 93 inhabitants where two new houses have been built in the last century.
Round here if the council wanted to get a message to the ratepayers, the most effective way would be to tell the postman or ask the parish council to do a leaflet drop. As we have mud coated roads all winter, the smell of cow poo in the summer, no street lights, no bus, no school, no gas, no main drainage, no pavements etc, I am not actually sure what we pay rates for anyway?
The plus side is that I can land my helicopter at the back of my house or the back of virtually any other house in the village without a single mutter. I guess that is worth paying the rates for!