Tindle Newspapers has today announced the purchase of a family-owned group of weekly newspapers in South Essex.

The Leigh and Westcliff Times, Rayleigh and Eastwood Times and Canvey Island and Benfleet Times were founded by the Guy family a quarter of a century ago.

Founders Michael and Shirley Guy are now retiring and have decided to sell the three titles to Tindle Newspapers for an undisclosed sum.

However their son Michael Guy Junior is staying on as General Manager and daughter Lisa Miller is staying on as advertisement manager

Directors of Tindle Newspapers Limited meet staff of the Leigh Times group.

The three directors of Tindle Newspapers – Sir Ray Tindle, Brian Doel and Wendy Craig – have met the staff of the newspapers and assured them there were no plans for changes.

Sir Ray, chairman of TNL, said he was delighted with the purchase and was grateful that the Guy family, who had founded the Times series of papers a quarter of a century ago, had offered to assist to ensure a smooth hand-over.

TNL chief executive Brian Doel said the Leigh Times Series was highly regarded in the area. “These newspapers would sit well with our current interests and greatly enhance our group,” he said.

And TNL director Wendy Craig welcomed all the staff and assured them that they were joining a happy old-established family company. “The three of us here today from TNL have completed 125 years in local newspapers. I hope you will feel that counts for something,” she said.

Scott Wood, publishing director of Tindle’s Yellow Advertiser, was unable to be present as he was on annual holiday. He is to become publishing director of the Leigh papers which are to be run as a separate company.

All three TNL directors assured the staff that the weekly newspaper industry was in good shape and in no danger whatever of going into decline as some commentators have recently suggested. Said Sir Ray: “All our weeklies are in fine fettle. You are joining a strong and flourishing weekly newspaper company.”

Comments

richard meredith (17/09/2008 13:49:06)
Postscript to the current Johnston Press and Trinity-Mirror disasters – see this from HTFP today and hear what enlightened proprietors who care about people, journalists
and profit in EQUAL measure, say –
“All three TNL directors assured the staff that the weekly newspaper industry was in good shape and in no danger whatever of going into decline as some commentators have recently suggested. Said Sir Ray (Tindle): “All our weeklies are in fine fettle. You are joining a strong and flourishing weekly newspaper company.”

anon (25/09/2008 17:38:24)
“All our weeklies are in fine fettle” and “You are joining a strong and flourishing weekly newspaper company”. (?!) Not what Tindle staff are being told/ led to believe elsewhere in the group. These three Essex papers can look forward to having the guts ripped out of their local content, their staff’s wages kept at World War II era levels, their employee rights and benefits eroded, their ideas for improvement and profit building consistently ignored, their workloads increased past what a seasoned pack horse would find acceptable and their staffing levels whittled down past what even giants like Trinity Mirror would consider a skeleton crew – if Tindle’s actions in London are anything to go by. (Where also, incidentally, staff were told there were ‘no plans for changes.’) All hail the future of regional newspaper journalism.