The Johnston press-owned title currently consulting over plans to close two district offices and make a number of staff redundant.

Four staff including veteran picture editor Dennis Lound, have already accepted the terms of compulsory redundancy offer while a fifth, assistant editor Richard Smith, has opted to go through the consultation procedure.

A series of departmental meetings has been taking place at which management have been asked to explain their plans for the paper and the Star's National Union of Journalists' chapel has agreed to suspend any further action until these have taken place.

Union members held an intentionally disruptive chapel meeting during work time last week and was due to hold another this week, but this has now been postponed following a chapel meeting on Tuesday.

Mother-of-chapel Julia Armstrong admitted the union's actions had so far won no concessions from management, but said members had been pleased by assurances that the paper's sole remaining district office in Doncaster would remain open.

"The main thing that people were pleased to hear was that the Doncaster office and Doncaster staff are not under threat at the moment," said Julia.

The other two district offices, in Barnsley and Rotherham, are due to close as part of the cutbacks and the district reporters who staffed them were among the four who accepted the compulsory redundancy terms.

Johnston Press declined to make any further comment on the story.