North-East daily The Journal has won its fight to preserve a region-wide economic body despite Tory threats to axe it.

The newspaper launched its Case for the North-East campaign earlier this year amid controversy over the future of regional development agency One NorthEast.

The Tories initially wanted to break up the region into smaller constituent parts and do away with a single co-ordinating body, but The Journal argued that this would affect the North-East’s ability to attract investment.

Now the new coalition government has announced that a single region-wide body will be preserved, although it is likely to lose some of its existing powers.

Although the government’s proposed Local Enterprise Partnerships will replace the RDAs, ministers made clear that the new partnerships may take the form of existing RDAs “in areas where they are popular.”

The paper greeted the announcement with a front-page splash on Friday headed “Victory on the united front.”

Journal editor Brian Aitken said: “We are delighted that the new coalition government has seen the sense of our Case For The North East campaign. Accepting the principle is a major step forward – and we now look forward to seeing how the detail is delivered.

“If ministers needed proof of the power of a united region it came only three days before their announcement on Local Enterprise Partnerships when it was announced that 100 companies from outside the region were prepared to move to the North east in return for money from a £125m venture capital fund.

“That funding is only in place because the public and private sector of the whole of the North East acted as one and approached the European Investment Bank for match funding.

“The North East is the first region in England to do this and a divided North east could not have been successful because the EIB would not get out of bed for deals much smaller than this.”