A weekly newspaper has launched a campaign to mend its ‘broken town’.

The Leighton Buzzard News says it is sick of seeing a lack of investment in the area and towns which the “authorities seem to have abandoned”.

Its first task in ‘Broken Buzzard’ is to get an old town clock mended after it stopped in December and has never told the correct time since.

The News will hand in a petition signed by readers on May 13 to South Bedfordshire District Council after it promised to fix the clock in the wake of paper’s campaign launch.

Other projects which have come under the microscope include a decision to appoint outsiders to run the town’s market, the proposed closure of a local middle school and Leighton Buzzard’s role in accommodating a proportion of 41,700 planned new houses in south Bedfordshire.

The News says it plans to hold to account all of those responsible for Leighton Buzzard and Linslade’s ills.