Regional newspapers who gained honours in last week’s Newspaper Awards for excellence in news production have been celebrating their success.

The Cambridge News was named Regional Newspaper of the Year while its website Cambridge News Online was praised for its extensive use of video.

The judges said of the News: “This entry won by an impressive margin. It looked exceptionally clean and tidy and had a great design and layout.

“The newspaper was well printed and offers great value for its cover price.”

Managing director Graham Ayres said: “This is a tremendous accolade for everyone at Cambridge Newspapers working both in print and online.”

“We strive to bring our readers and online users the very best offering every day of the week and to be honoured in such a way is extremely rewarding and reflects well on the hard work, commitment and positive attitude of all our staff.”

Another newspaper company celebrating success is the KM Group, publisher of the Kent Messenger, which was shortlisted in four categories for both its print and internet operations.

It was named as winner of the Environmental Newspaper Company of the Year award for its commitment to the environment in the supply and disposal of materials used to produce newspapers and the development of the company’s new offices in Whitstable.

KM Group operations director Duncan Gray said: “This is a very satisfying award to win because it’s an area of our business we have worked very hard to improve. It was also rewarding to find ourselves in such elite company.”

The group was also one of only two regional media publishers to be shortlisted in the Electronic News Site of the Year category with its news website www.kentonline.co.uk.

Finally the Herald Express, Torquay, was named winner in the Best Use of New Media category for its cross-media project ‘Rock Stars.’

The project involved readers and website users voting to put together a new rock band, member by member, based on online video ‘auditions.’

The judges said: “This entry won by a significant majority, many of the judges being impressed with its objective of attracting a younger generation with a project based on creating a rock band, member by member. It is an incredibly innovative way of getting a younger digital audience to cleverly link back into printed newspapers.”

The Rock Stars band is a four-piece named Space Beacon Earth – a name also chosen by a text vote among readers. It can be seen at www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk/rockstars