Trinity Mirror has today confirmed that its offices in Sutton Coldfield, Tamworth and Lichfield are closing with five journalists transferred either to its new regional headquarters in Fort Dunlop, or to its Cannock office.

In addition the NUJ has claimed there will be further closures at offices in Rugely, Stafford and West Bromwich and at one of the two existing offices in Solihull.

If so this would leave Walsall as the only Birmingham Post and Mail satellite office in the Black Country, which has a population of 1m people.

Staff at some of the offices staged a symbolic ten-minute walkout at 12pm yesterday in protest at the plans.

Regional managing director Steve Brown and other senior managers had visited a number of the offices personally to tell staff they were closing.

Tony Lennox, editorial director of Trinity's Midland Weekly Media division, said today: "Yesterday we announced a number of branch office closures. This will affect just five reporters in our North Midlands titles in Lichfield, Tamworth and Sutton Coldfield. They will be relocated to our new headquarters in Fort Dunlop or the Cannock office, depending on their preference.

"Most will also have the option of remote working from home when the new editorial system is rolled out to the weeklies."

It is understood that the proposed office closures do not affect the future of any individual newspaper titles, with existing titles set to be run from elsewhere.

But NUJ Northern regional organiser Chris Morley said: "There is a great deal of anger and frustration among journalists and a belief that this is just a surrender of valuable territory to their rivals."