THE campaign to save the Exeter Northcott theatre from closure dominated the pages of the Echo during the first few weeks of this year.

Weeks of extensive campaigning paid off when the Arts Council decided not to withdraw essential funding — but only if urgent improvements were made to the theatre's programme and community work.

The Arts Council's South West boss Nick Capaldi admitted he had been surprised by the strong reaction to his December 2007 announcement of a possible funding cut, just after the Northcott reopened following a £2.1m refit.

Almost 30,000 people signed petitions condemning the decision and it was criticised by a host of the country's best actors including Sir Roger Moore and Sir Ian McKellen.

Mr Capaldi also praised the Echo's coverage of the controversy, calling it one of the most impressive campaigns he has ever seen on an arts issue and admitted it had played a part in changing minds on the Art Council's South West board.

The Northcott had already been allocated £547,236 for 2008-09 and it will now be given the same amounts in 2009-10 and 2010-11 — but only if staff can demonstrate changes have been made. The funding is also subject to a review in 2009. Without Arts Council money, Northcott staff say they would have had to close the theatre.

There was also cause for financial celebrations from other worthy recipients, including electrical engineer Peter Heal, from Newton Abbot, who won a Lottery jackpot of nearly £3m. The 37-year-old bachelor planned to move to the Poitou-Charentes region of France where his parents live.

The Echo revealed that the number of high-ranking council staff in Devon earning more than £50,000 a year had trebled in the past five years, with the top boss at Devon County Council earning more than £140,000 per annum. The council defended the pay levels, which had been obtained using the Freedom of Information Act.

It argued that they reflected the responsibilities of the jobs in such large organisations and were in line with market forces.

With an attractive salary it would be possible to live in Exeter's most expensive street, announced as Baring Crescent, in St Leonard's. Boasting an average house price of £724,100 in February, some properties have fetched over £1.3m.

On the subject of housing, controversial proposals were unveiled to build nearly 47,000 new homes in the city and surrounding districts by 2026. The regional masterplan also called for the creation of a second new town near Exeter.

Welcome planning news was the go ahead for the expansion of Sandy Park rugby stadium, the home of Exeter Chiefs, boosting the capacity of their £15m ground to 13,956.

A decision was also announced by Exeter City Football Club that they would be staying at their historic home at St James's Park for the foreseeable future.

Another historic building, the Custom House on Exeter Quay, reopened after almost two decades of refurbishment work and more than £1.1m of investment. The Grade I listed building is now home to the council's archaeological field unit offices.

While there was much to celebrate in the New Year, it wasn't all good news. Whipton Hospital was forced to temporarily close its doors to new patients following complaints highlighted in the Echo. The closure was to enable fresh claims about poor standards of care to be looked into.

In March, the Echo launched its latest campaign, We Care, to improve the lives of carers.

It was prompted by the story of mum Bronwyn Nott, from Sandford, near Crediton. She cares for her 17-year-old daughter Rachel, who has profound learning difficulties and the mental age of a toddler.

The campaign aims to highlight the issues carers face and set up a fund to pay for much-needed respite care. Falklands war veteran Simon Weston added his support.

Proving how influential the Echo's campaigns are was the Save Our Sight campaign. In March it was announced the majority of patients needing costly sight-saving injections in Devon are now getting the treatment funded on the NHS.

The campaign was launched in February 2007 after it was disclosed patients were going blind because drugs to treat the wet form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) were not available on the NHS.

It was also good news for the Echo's Green Shoppers campaign. Not only did Prime Minister Gordon Brown praise the Echo for its role in spearheading a campaign that could see plastic bags banished when he met Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw, recycling rates hit an all-time high — and cleansing chiefs said it was thanks to the Echo's campaign.

The city's recycling rate hit 38.18 per cent, way beyond its target for not just next year, but the year after, ranking Exeter in the top 20 of the 398 councils across England for its dry recyclables.

More welcome environmental news came when a Devon landfill company and its owner had more than £1m confiscated for illegally dumping waste.

The ruling against John Craxford, of Kingskerswell, Newton Abbot, and John Craxford (Plant Hire) Ltd, of which the former is one of the company directors, was the largest ever awarded in the UK for an environmental crime.

Court stories continued to fill the paper. A teenage hit-and-run driver who did not stop after colliding with a 10-year-old boy in Exeter on Christmas Day — thinking he had killed him — was spared jail.

Lee Sibley, 18, had been given a Peugeot car as a Christmas present by his father hours before hitting Connor Aplin and leaving him unconscious in a city road. He only had a provisional licence and no insurance.

The inquest into the death of Exeter University student Gavin Britton was held.

The 18-year-old was found slumped next to a wall by the Phoenix Arts Centre, in Gandy Street, on the morning of Tuesday, November 28, 2006, after taking part in an initiation pub crawl. The verdict was death by alcohol abuse.