Support Local newspaper Week with the Streatham Guardian

The film fan had been twice thrown out of Streatham Odeon cinema by staff he said branded him a "fire hazard" because he was in a wheelchair.

He had to drag himself along the floor because he had not been allowed to take his wheelchair upstairs to watch a film.

But after this newspaper spoke to the cinema, and wrote a front-page story exposing his shocking treatment, the West Norwood resident was apologised to and is now free to visit the cinema as he wished.

This is one of the many roles an independent newspaper such as the Streatham Guardian can play in fighting for residents, and making its patch a better place.

In the past year this newspaper has campaigned tirelessly in print and online to see the Streatham Hub development become a reality, and the Streatham Ice Arena saved.

We have campaigned with thousands of Crystal Palace residents who want to see their bingo hall become a cinema, not a church, and to see the return of Lambeth's police vice squad.

Our company, Newsquest, is leading the way in the war against trafficked women by banning all advertisements for brothels and massage parlours unlike our rivals who ignore the police evidence.

We have held Lambeth Council to account, fighting against unfair rent rises for tenants, exposing wasteful spending of taxpayers' money, and demanding improvement to dilapidated library and leisure facilities.

But we have also supported its positive work, including a campaign to stop shops selling knives to children.

We have championed the very best of what has happened in our area - from record-breaking Dragon's Den performances to hero cops and council workers going above and beyond the call of duty.

We have even documented the wierd and wonderful, helping a love-struck parrot reunite with its owners, and leading the hunt for the infamous Palace Puma.

But we have also not tried to paint over the cracks of what is wrong in the area, like the problems of gun, knife, and youth crime, in our bid to change the area for the better.

But all these roles are now increasingly under threat. As part of a nationwide Local Newspaper week taking place from May 10 to 16, we have chosen to speak out against the difficulties the local newspaper industry is facing.

Council-run newspapers like Lambeth Life are spending taxpayers money on creating newspapers that produce pro-council propaganda, only telling one side of the story in the borough.

They are not local newspapers, which break the majority of stories you read in the nationals.

By taking advertising from the Streatham Guardian, as well as withdrawing its own advertisements, Lambeth Life is helping to put out of business the very newspapers that hold the council to account.

No stories in Lambeth Life - that costs £500,000 a year to run - will expose a poor council decision that wasted money, or might paint the council in a bad light.

Lambeth Council argues that much of the running costs are offset by advertising, but at the moment £163,346 of taxpayers money per year is still being spent on it.

So our fight against council freesheets - that are not an independent voice - rolls on. The Streatham Guardian was featured in a BBC report in March covering the debate over the threat to local and regional newspapers posed by council-produced publications like Lambeth Life.

The issues have been debated in parliament, and MPs and editors have called for an investigation into the council newspapers they say threaten the survival of independent local media and undermine democracy.

But it may be that a squeeze on council funding over the next few years may force the hands of councils who cannot justify spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayers money on propaganda while cutting funding to youth clubs, road maintenance, and schools.