The York Evening Press’s Stop The Highway Robbery campaign has collected more than 5,000 signatures – including that of former cabinet minister Frank Dobson.
The campaign calls on the City of York Council to abolish evening and on-street parking charges, remove unnecessary yellow lines and conduct a review of day-time charges.

The Somerset County Gazette’s Cash For Cancer Relief campaign has topped the £315,000 mark.
The paper has teamed up with the Macmillan Cancer Relief charity to raise £485,000 to provide a range of services and care for cancer sufferers and their families in Somerset.

Trade and Industry secretary Patricia Hewitt has approved a revision of the newspaper wholesalers’ code of practice which removes restrictions on retailers ‘selling-on’ newspaper and magazine titles to other retailers within the same wholesaler distribution region.
The decision is in response to an Office of Fair Trading recommendation that removing the restrictions on maximum distances between retailers and sub-retailers and maximum values or volumes of titles that can be resold would help promote the practice of selling-on and would give retailers increased choice and flexibility.

The Chichester Observer has pledged £1,000 to save the city’s Christmas lights after they were threatened by a cash crisis.
The paper joined forces with city churches, a local publishing company and a housing association to plug the funding gap of £4,000 which would have seen the city streets ‘go dark’ this Christmas.

Copies of the Worcester Standard have been delivered to prospective local government candidates in Serbia to help them understand the importance of local media when they are campaigning.
The papers were taken to the Balkan peninsula country by Worcester’s Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate Margaret Harper, who was leading training sessions on campaigning for the Democratic Party of Serbia.
Ten copies of the Welwyn & Hatfield Times have also been delivered to Serbia to show how democracy works in the west.

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