A campaigning splash published by six regional dailies after the government axed the Eastern Leg of HS2 has been voted the best front page of 2021 by HTFP readers.

Reach plc daily titles in the North of England teamed up to run the ‘Trainspotting’ front page which mimicked the publicity material around the iconic 1996 Danny Boyle film.

The front page, pictured below, urged ministers to ‘Choose the North’ and was carried by Newcastle dailies The Journal and The Chronicle, the Teesside Gazette, the Huddersfield Examiner, the Hull Daily Mail and the Manchester Evening News.

It scored a narrow victory over the Plymouth Herald’s ‘beacon of light’ splash following a shooting spree that left six people dead in what turned out to be our closest-ever Front Page of the Year contest.

We nominated 12 of the most eye-catching splashes from 2021 for our annual contest befofre inviting you to choose the winner.

It quickly boiled down into a race between five of our nominees who between them took more than 90pc of all the votes.

Wokingham.Today raced into an early lead with its dramatic image of a major fire in the town while there was also support for the Telegraph & Argus’s front page tribute to tragic tot Star Hobson, murdered at just 16 months by her mother’s lover.

But in the end Reach titles scored a 1-2-3 with the Hull Daily Mail’s splash highlighting the number of suicides on the Humber Bridge coming in third.

The Front Page of the Year vote, which has taken place every year since 2013, formed part of our Review of the Year series looking back at the last 12 months in regional journalism.

The full results can be seen below.

 Loading ...