A regional daily is set to move offices to an out-of-town base after a hunt for new premises lasting more than 15 months.
The Sunderland Echo has announced it will move this month from its current Pennywell base on the outskirts of the city, to Rainton Bridge, just over six miles away.
The new Echo headquarters lie approximately eight-and-a-half miles from Sunderland city centre, near the town of Houghton-le-Spring which is historically part of its patch.
The Johnston Press title revealed the move in a story about its historic clock, which has kept time outside its past and present offices since the 1920s but which has now been removed and donated to Beamish Museum, in County Durham.
The clock was removed from the Pennywell building on Tuesday
The clock, which is framed in a model of the old Wearmouth Bridge, is believed to have been first installed at the Echo’s former Bridge Street offices in 1929 before being transferred to Pennywell, its home since 1976.
The Echo made the decision to leave Pennywell in November 2013 when the premises, which originally housed a printing presss, were put up for sale.
At the time, managing director Stephen Plews indicated that the paper would be remaining on Wearside, saying: “We have always worked in the heart of the Sunderland area, and we always will.”
Neither the Sunderland Echo nor Johnston Press have responded to requests from HTFP for further comment about the proposed move. However readers have shared their thoughts on the Echo’s website.
One poster, adz160, wrote: “Surely all of this should be kept in Sunderland. The offices would be best suited to a city centre location with printing elsewhere.
“It’s the 21st century and a newspaper should be supporting the city economy and having personnel (reporters) in the area that it is covering.
“As for the clock… this should stay in Sunderland. It is history and heritage. Bit by bit Sunderland is losing any remnants of its grand history.”
Daveyboy78 added: “Rainton is closer to Durham than Sunderland. I know business choices have to be made but once again the city loses a piece of its unique identity.”
However, rachiio, who described themselves as an Echo employee, responded to the criticism, saying: “As an employee it infuriates me when people make mindless comments on something they know nothing about!
“The company is moving forward as a business whilst maintaining its local roots.”
The clock outside Bridge Street in 1934
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Were there really no suitable premises in Sunderland? At least the clock has been saved. The Yorkshire Post/Evening Post clock in Leeds is now a laughing stock. After the talk of keeping the tower, it is now shoddily clad (not in straight lines) with one ad space on it: the clock remains, not working.
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Eight-and-a-half miles from your core patch may as well be 80. I don’t know Sunderland but surely there’s office space in the centre which could have attracted local people to come in to place ads, provide stories, etc. No one will now – what is this company thinking of?
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Oh come on now!
8.5 miles is on the doorstep.
I work for a JP paper which has no office in the town it is meant to serve.
Instead, I am based in a neighbouring town about 20 miles away.
I do get to visit the town once a week though.
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Hopefully they are setting up a satellite office in town as they head for their new site, for journalists and the ad staff so they retain a presence on their core patch.
The idea of moving out-of-town was pioneered (I think) by Northcliffe in the early 80s, as I remember passing by the Torquay paper which had just moved from the centre. After 30 years, you’d think the business model for such moves was soundly established and the potential downsides were equally well understood. Trinity Mirror shifting everyone from the centre of Birmingham to the Fort on the wrong side of the M6 was, for me, the catalyst for the decline of the Post/Mail/Mercury as effective news gathering media, which only made sense as a property deal to an always cash-hungry plc.
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Flossie the Sheep has put a hoof (or whatever sheep have on their extremities) on a problem we have too. A scheme to “meet the public/readers” in a 10-mile distant coffee shop has fizzled out after a few months, which makes Ian Halstead’s “Hopefully” post just that, as he surely intended. When we do all finally disappear it’s odds on no-one will even notice.
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I’d be worried if I was in an office on a JP paper where the lease is up soon. Be on the move soon methinks!
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The dreaded arid faceless news hubs beckon for JP staff. Taking the papers even further away from readers. Looking at JPs awful share price, who can blame them? Put all the sheep in the same pen and save money.
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The Roman Empire is to relocate from Rome following a wholesale redesign of its borders by vandals and visigoths.
Starting Monday, all Imperial edicts will be dispatched from an olive oil shop in Chester. This new ‘Roman Hub’ has been branded ‘exciting’ by the Emperor Honorius.
“We’ve been rattling around in this tired old city for well over a thousand years now and it’s time to move with the times.” He said, while cowering under his caravan.
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Irony is that most reporters who will move will probably be nearer home, as so few live “on the patch” nowadays. So those who survive the culls might get a small benefit. Clutch at straws time.
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