The Clifton Chronicle has launched its first community campaign.

Readers of the new Bristol weekly have been invited to sign a front page petition to prevent a new drug dependency unit from opening in the heart of a residential area close to a primary school.

Editor Stan Szecowka was invited to an NHS-organised meeting by residents and was the only journalist present when the trust’s director admitted it had not done enough to engage the community.

Builders are due to start work in the New Year.

Stan has a successful record of leading newspaper campaigns. He won the Yorkshire Community Journalist of the Year Award in 2000 and last year helped the Bristol Evening Post win a national Community Newspaper of the Year accolade for a schools’ campaign he initiated.

He left the evening paper after five years as deputy editor when other senior staff in the south-west departed, and has set up his own rival newspaper in the city.

The Clifton Chronicle’s eighth edition hit the streets last week with a record size of 52-pages.