A weekly newspaper’s campaign calling for a radiotherapy centre in Cumbria has gained pace with 12,000 readers signing a petition in support of the move.

The Westmorland Gazette’s launched its Shorter Journey’s Longer Lives campaign in October to try and persuade health bosses to open a specialist unit at the Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal.

Cancer patients currently have to travel around 50 miles to Preston in Lancashire for treatment.

The Gazette helped to gather 12,000 names on a petition which has now been handed over to NHS bosses by the paper’s senior head of content Andrew Thomas, and a protest march was also held in the town.

In a comment piece in the paper after the protest, Andrew wrote: “More than 2,000 people marched through the town to call for a radiotherapy cancer treatment centre to be created at Westmorland General Hospital.

“Hundreds of patients from South Lakeland and Furness currently have to make up to a 140-mile round trip from this area to Preston to receive treatment for cancer. Some have to make that long journey every day over an extended period at a time when they are ill, worried and suffering from some of the after effects of treatment.

“One of South Lakeland’s leading doctors, Dr Hugh Reeve, has said that some of the area’s cancer sufferers are rejecting the life-enhancing treatment simply because they cannot face the journey.

“All this is why, back in October, The Westmorland Gazette launched its Shorter Journeys Longer Lives campaign, to try to persuade health chiefs to bring a radiotherapy unit to Kendal.”

The campaign has been run alongside a similar one by Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron.

Cumbria and Lancashire NHS Collaborative Commissioning Board – comprising representatives from six Cumbria and Lancashire NHS trusts – must now decide whether to give the go-ahead to the unit.

Proposals have been submitted which aim to show how such a centre could be created as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.