Editorial staff are set to party at three Ecng papers after they each won a £1,000 award for putting new ideas into practice.

The Hitchin Comet, Ilford Recorder and Evening News in Norwich won the cash, to be spent on a staff party.

Norfolk Publishing managing director Barry Dennis said: “There have been some excellent initiatives across all of our newspapers.

“Our editors and their teams deserve huge pats on the back for the way they have responded to the challenge of continually improving the quality of their papers. That can only be good for our readers and advertisers.”

The contest came from work done at the first Ecng editorial conference earlier this year when plans, targets and ideas were set out.

Work to the Hitchin Comet included a redesigned front page, heavy in-paper promotion of the website and e-mail bylines, which have resuled in an increase of e-mail traffic.

At the Ilford Recorder, staff are now involved in regular brainstorming sessions and weekly planning meetings. Copy clinics and a revamped style sheet have been introduced and a dedicated web editor has been appointed.

Evening News editor David Bourn aimed to get ten new ideas into the paper each month through a new-style planning process – and this has been comfortably achieved.

Away from the newsroom, micro-billing means every newsagent now gets a relevant bill to highlight local news.

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