A campaign double led to a splash for a weekly newspaper as it took one fight to Westminster and celebrated victory in another.

The Northamptonshire Telegraph’s Corby edition gave over its front page to its successful two-year fight to give people in the town a greater say on plans for new shared housing, as well as its ongoing fight for justice for murdered six-year-old Collette Gallacher.

North Northamptonshire Council has announced houses in multiple occupation in a large area of Corby will be subject to much stricter planning controls as a result of a campaign by the Telegraph, launched in 2021.

Elsewhere, reporter Kate Cronin travelled to London last week with Collette’s sisters to meet Minister of State for Prisons, Parole and Probation Damian Hinds about their bid to give victims of crime a greater say in criminal justice decisions that affect them.

It comes after the Telegraph overcame repeated frustrations in revealing the new identity of Adam Stein, who raped and killed the child in 1986, after he was released from prison last year.

HTFP reported in January this year how the paper had even been refused the right to identify Stein despite him being returned to prison for four years for an unknown offence in an undisclosed part of the country.

Kate told HTFP: “Campaigning takes a huge amount of work and effort, so to get two big successes in a week is quite special.

“Visiting Westminster was a surreal moment and one that I won’t forget. It was a privilege to be there with two such great women who have done so much to fight for the rights of victims.

“The behind-the-scenes journalism – poring over court documents, reading and interpreting obscure council agendas, spending hours leafing through archives, scrapping to get information out of the authorities – is what readers often don’t see in the 500 words that make it on to the screen or into the paper. But that work is essential to get a campaign over the line.

“That’s what marks out good local newspapers from the rest.

“Local papers have had tough few years and we’ve had to find a new place for ourselves in a much more aggressive, larger media market.

“It’s our job to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with local people and to give them a voice.

“Our five reporters have more than 100 years of collective experience working in North Northamptonshire. Already this year we’ve helped to pause the felling of the Wellingborough trees, we’ve campaigned successfully to save ten Corby community centres from shutting and just this week we’ve joined the fight to save Kettering Leisure Village which is threatened with closure.

“Our future lies in standing up for our communities.”