Staff at the Bury Times Group have this week welcomed new editor Ian Savage.

Previously deputy editor of fellow Newsquest title the Bolton Evening News, he succeeds Bill Allen who had been editor since 1991.

As editor of the group Ian, (38), is now responsible for a series of weeklies – the paid-for Bury Times which is published every Friday with a smaller edition on a Tuesday, the Prestwich & Whitefield Guide, the Radcliffe Times and the free Bury Journal.

He has spent his entire journalism career in the North West, briefly working for the Blackpool Citizen before joining the Bury Times as a trainee reporter in 1985.

From there he moved to the Bolton and Bury Journals, before moving to the Bolton Evening News where, apart from a spell at the Manchester Evening News, he had worked ever since.

He was appointed deputy editor in 1997.

Ian said: “It’s fantastic to become editor at the paper which I started on 20 years ago.

“The Bury Times is a thriving local paper – Bill has done a great job at I hope to be able to take it on to even greater heights.”