A regional daily is set to return to a city centre base for the first time in 23 years in a bid to make reporters “more visible” to readers.
The Argus, Brighton, has announced its editorial, advertising and newspaper sales staff will move out of their current Argus House headquarters in June, to new first floor offices at Dolphin House, in Manchester Street, Brighton city centre.
Argus House, based at Hollingbury on the outskirts of the city, is more than four miles from the city centre, and has been sold to developer Hanbury Properties.
Editor Mike Gilson has welcomed the move to a more central location.
He said: “While Hollingbury holds so much history for us, times move on and the new Manchester Street office will give our journalists much easier access to the people they need to hold to account and the events and happenings experienced by thousands of our readers.
“Our reporters will be much more visible as they go about their business. At a time when many newspapers are moving out of town, this return is a show of faith about the future direction of our business and our commitment to the wonderful place we serve.”
Dawn Sweeney, managing director of Newsquest Sussex, added: “I am delighted we are moving back into the centre of the city. Our commitment to producing first-class journalism and commercial platforms that have the community at their heart can only be enhanced by this move.
“The premises allow us to shape our business as we continue evolving into a multi-media enterprise with an ever-growing audience.”
The Argus moved from its offices in North Road, Brighton, to Hollingbury in 1993 following the installation of new presses on the old KTM factory site in 1992.
The newspaper had gone completely electronic in July 1987 but the new computerised presses meant it was able to print in full colour for the first time.
In 2012, The Argus had previously agreed to sell Hollingbury to Brighton and Hove Bus Company, which planned to demolish half of the current site and create a new depot. However, this did not go ahead.
The former North Road site was eventually redeveloped for housing but still bears a link to the past with the name Argus Lofts.
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Excellent news, back where the paper belongs.
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Relocation may not save the day for this title but it is certainly a move in the right direction. I ply my increasingly precarious trade in an outlying “industrial” (all office workers) dead zone three miles from the urban centre which is difficult to reach and offers our readers/advertisers (those who can be bothered) no parking. Back to the city, I say, and be quick about it. Leave the front door open with cups of tea and buns available for visitors; let’s get truly local again.
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Brilliant news – maybe the death of local journalism has been at least a little exaggerated? A step in the right direction.
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Quite a story. I once went for a job interview at a Northamptonshire paper, and almost spun the car around when I approached an Alan Partridge-esqu commercial building next to a motel on the outer ring-road hinterland. Awful. My experience up until then was working from creaky old town offices, but people (customers) could access them and speak to reporters.
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The horse may have bolted, but it’s not too late to move the stable.
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Sorry, but this is a myth. People certainly used to pop in to local newspaper offices, but the footfall simply isn’t there any more – they can book their ads online or over the phone, assuming they still think a local newspaper is a good advertising vehicle (and traditional revenue streams have dried up). Visitors can’t park easily in the town centre, and I genuinely can’t remember when someone last came into a front office with a story – I think it may have been 1994. in the unimaginably unlikely event that they do, there aren’t any reporters around to talk to them. When I was a reporter in the early 1980s, front offices were the generally the habitat of loners and loons and there was no sniff of a proper story.
This move may have a perceptual benefit, but that’s all it will be.
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Antiquarian is making a strong move here to oust Minim as the HTFP House Curmudgeon. Readers – bah humbug. Move to the town centre? Pshaw – nonsense because we’re all doomed anyway. And, Anti, (may I call you that?) old chum, readers can park a lot more easily in my town centre than on the windswept, car-congested, mouse-clickers’ hinterland currently on offer. Worth a try.
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Nothing more than a coincidence. Developer offers money and business is able to relocate into a central location. Editorial chiefs give the spin reporters will be closer to readers etc. If that was important it would be Newsquest policy to relocate all papers into central locations. It isn’t policy because publishers believe in the modern world location isn’t important as challenging journalism is being replaced by user generated content.
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Whether it is coincidence or a business decision it has to be good for the teams and the readers. Well done The Argus and Newsquest.
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I agree with West Yorks Analyst. My suspicion is that the developer made a good offer, the company bit their hands off, and then decided to apply a bit of reverse spin….
The fact that the new premises can give editorial higher visibility is coincidental and not the reason for the move
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Behold, the reinvention of the wheel.
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Have to agree with West Yorks. Good offer on current premises and the staff left can fit into a central shoebox. Business deal dressed up as an editorial decision.
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that`s good positive news ,good to hear it and hope it makes a difference,a local paper operating out of the locality is ridiculous
nice one!
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This sounds great at first glance…until you read the address. “first floor of an office block in the centre of Brighton” often does not mean a newspaper office with a street frontage, a front office that sells papers & into which people can walk, whether to buy ads or pix or to deliver stories & threats of violence. It means an anonymous suite of offices among several other anonymous suites of offices, guarded by a generic security guard in main reception who won’t allow you up the stairs without a pass. It means your company name listed on a board in the reception in roughly the same type size & prominence as all the other firms in the building. All it means really is that if any of the reporters who are left have time to do live reporting, they can get out into the town centre more easily. Cue more vox pops?
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A paper with journalists on peanuts, management who don’t know their own staff’s first names, unless of course redundancy calls. Morale at this papers is at a huge low, now the staff have parking problems to add to the pressure working there. This papers survives on badly written hand outs and free pics from the public, also run as close to the bone as possible (apart from MD & Ed’s wages of course) I can’t wait to get out! Hardly local news considering on a very small part of our news comes form central Brighton, soon to go weekly, I am led to believe on the Q/T
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Pj – that sounds dire. Look, cancel what I said earlier and I’ll go with Antiquarian and the naysayers. Town centre relocation? Boo, a con trick, stay where you are on the windy outskirts, with your “ever-growing audience” (isn’t an audience what you get in theatres and cinemas?). Anyway, I too have senior managers who seem to regard me and my editorial colleagues as the enemies within, inimical to all that’s good and decent about corporate life (ie. shuffling paper, producing spreadsheets, and walking past desks without any acknowledgement). Perhaps they will feel more at home when local news is no longer a saleable commodity and they can progress to the plastic lavatory seat industry, a fast-growing sector with all the housebuilding going on.
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Well, Dicki (may I call you that?) old chum, I have no pretensions to your curmudgeonly crown. I didn’t say it wasn’t worth a try, nor did I say we’re all doomed.
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Anti: but it isn’t and we are. I had a vision of some welcoming coffee-shop High Street frontage, complete with flower-bedecked tables & chairs, and smiling lads and lasses handing out free newspapers and copies of the Leveson Inquiry to grateful passers-by. I am now informed by GladImOutOfit that the premises is actually a first-floor machine gun emplacement and by Pj that working for the company is akin to slaving in Gradgrind’s factory.
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Brighton is awash with stories and history, and The Argus doesn’t even scratch the surface. I speak with experience!
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Dick- you’re not employed in the industry are you? I presumed, from the tone and frequency of your comments that you were redundant?
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oldadrep: I am employed in an industry. And, yes, I’ve always felt redundant ( “I presumed, from the tone and frequency of your comments that you were redundant”). If you meant “made redundant” I guess (and hope) you’re not employed in the industry on the editorial side. On we go.
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An improvement of siting, but Manchester Street is hardly the hub of Brighton, though far better than Hellingbury, as staff called it.
As for Gilson’s glib comment “While Hollingbury holds so much history for us” no it doesn’t. It was always s,,,hole of a warehouse with no buzz at all and I know because I worked there.
The history and the real action was all at the old news centre in North Road, in the centre of Brighton, when the Argus sold 100,000 plus instead of a miserable 12,000 plus now in a county with 1.5 million people!
The comment on HTFP about it becoming a weekly makes sense. An upstairs office away from the pesky public sounds about right.
The demise of this once superb evening paper is just sad, but of course one of many and not just NQ. I do hope the move helps it improve sales, but I fear it is far too late.
Get more staff Mike!!! Your paper needs them!
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A small step in the right direction from one paper. I wonder if the day will ever come when the big cheese at a regional daily has a light bulb moment and declares: “I know, why not restart same-day printing?”
I’m sure this would be the cue for hearty backslapping all round and countless press releases hailing this new “innovation”.
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You can’t overstate the importance of having a LOCAL paper move out of the local area, it’s not about footfall or even about people popping in to pay for a picture, it’s a symbol of your commitment to the area. If you’re not bothered why should they be? A local paper is as important in making a town what it is as a local pub or a market, police station or GP surgery, I genuinely believe that.
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When the Chester Chronicle moved out of town, making way for a big conversion of the building into upmarket student accommodation, Trinity-Mirror swore blind that the move would increase footfall.
Unsurprisingly, even the regular callers couldn’t be bothered to make the trek to the new remote new location.
I believe they had one visitor a couple of years ago when someone got lost and called in to ask for directions…
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