More than 50 staff at Wolverhampton’s Express & Star have applied for voluntary redundancy, following last month’s announcement that the company was looking to cut some 40 posts at the paper.

A 30-day consultation, in which staff were asked to register their interest in voluntary redundancy, has now expired and managing director Alan Harris told HoldtheFrontPage he was “hopeful” that compulsory job losses could be avoided.

He said applications for redundancy had come from most departments, including around half a dozen from editorial.

These are now being considered by the various heads of department and further news is expected soon.

Alan said: “The applications are now being reviewed to see if they can be accepted and this will take another few days.

“We then hope to be in a position to move to the next level and speak to staff and give them time to consider whether to accept redundancy.”

The company announced the voluntary redundancy scheme last month “to help fight poor trading conditions”.

John Corser, father of chapel for the Express & Star, said: “The union is hopeful that there won’t be any compulsory redundancies in editorial and we are advising NUJ members if they require any advice about how the redundancy scheme operates.

“Obviously we’d prefer it if there were no redundancies at all but we appreciate the realities of the current economic climate in regional newspapers.”

In a memo to staff the company said it was essential that savings were made to ensure the “long-term financial strength of the company” but that redundancies would be kept to a minimum.

It follows an earlier round of redundancies last year, which saw 14 editorial jobs lost out of a total 39 redundancies at the paper.

The company had previously said it was looking to shed 50 posts, a figure reduced due to natural wastage. Six editorial posts went at sister paper the Shropshire Star, with another 24 staff leaving from other departments.