These four campaigns – together with the Gazette-backed Blackpool's A Knockout, which is within days of realising its £400,000 target for children's MRI facilities in Blackpool – showed the vital role your local newspaper plays.

Local Newspaper Week, May 5 to 11,champions and celebrates the UK's local media.

This year's theme is Campaigning for Your Community, one which could not be any more apt after 12 months of success for The Gazette.

Here we showcase four of our community campaigns – featured in both newspaper and on our website www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk – which have fought injustice, supported vital services and the people in our communities.

Sign Up For Blackpool
THERE was widespread anger, frustration and disbelief after Manchester was selected ahead of Blackpool as the venue for the UK's first Las Vegas-style supercasino.

For years Blackpool was seen as the ideal tourist location for such a tourism-based scheme, but the Government's Casino Advisory Panel (CAP) thought not.

Within hours of picking through the CAP's flawed reasoning behind its selection, a determination, a cause and a campaign was born.

Despite the dismissive claims that Blackpool was nothing but a sore loser, it was clear there were hard facts and plenty of reasons why the resort should fight back.

Within six weeks, more than 12,000 residents had signed our call for a Government rethink.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell ignored it, but our lobbying in the House of Lords saw peers throw out Manchester's selection.

The support Blackpool built up by Sign Up For Blackpool highlighted the plight of a resort and brought it to the attention of the national Government who set up a task force and have since pledged extra millions to aid regeneration, most notably £85m for the long-awaited tram network revamp.

This campaign was more than just about gaining casino development, it was about highlighting the future of a town in the wake of years of under-funding.

Help Our Heroes
AS families across the Fylde prepared for Christmas, 600 troops based at Weeton camp shipped out to Afghanistan on their seven-month tour of duty.

Always supporting our local regiment, and alongside the Blackpool branch of the Royal Marine's Association, The Gazette launched the Help our Heroes campaign to send comfort boxes to local men and women in Helmand Province over the festive period.

Gazette readers heard our call to arms and helped collect more than 600 boxes, providing each one of the soldiers with a Christmas present from the Fylde.

Containing toiletries, essentials, little luxuries, cards and gifts, the boxes were warmly received on the front line on Christmas Day.


Stand up for Post Offices
A staggering 9,461 people signed our petition to urge Post Office Ltd to rethink plans to close 12 under-threat Fylde branches including offices in Bispham, Fleetwood, Layton, Lytham, Poulton and South Shore.
In-paper stories and petition forms were carried daily to ensure the greatest amount of publicity.

The strength of support for our vital local offices was phenomenal.
A 2,000 strong march through Lytham in support of Warton Street Post Office, a street protest in support of Poulton's Hodderway Post Office and a visit from shadow post office minister, Charles Hendry, who personally signed the petition, were among the highlights.

Our efforts were not in vain. On April 2 postmaster Mark Bamforth was informed his Lytham Post Office would remain open.

Post Office Ltd earmarked 59 Lancashire branches for closure as part of national cost-cutting. Just one – the Lytham office – was saved .
The campaigning undoubtedly helped sway postal chiefs.


Mooky's Christmas Dream
Twenty five inspirational local children received an early Christmas present last December when they were invited to spend a VIP day at Blackpool Tower.

The Gazette teamed up with the Tower to find youngsters under 16 who have shown outstanding bravery in the face of serious illness or challenging circumstances.

People were asked to send their nominations in to The Gazette .
As well as gaining free entry to the Tower, youngsters were given free tickets to Christmas Panto Cinderella, a family ticket for Tussards waxworks and generous helpings of popcorn and ice cream to ensure they had a day to remember.

See a feature on Blackpool's A Knockout, and Blackpool Mayor Robert Wynne's extraordinary year in office in Monday's Gazette.