Another of Johnston Press’s regional managing directors has left the company amid a wide-ranging shake-up of its operations.

As reported yesterday, former Trinity Mirror executive Steve Brown is to take charge of JP’s North division, following the departure of Chris Green two weeks ago.

Now it has emerged that Steve will also take control of the company’s existing North-West division, which is ceasing to exist as a separate entity.

The North-West division included two daily papers, the Lancashire Evening Post and the Blackpool Gazette, along with a number of weekly titles.

As a result of the changes, Margaret Hilton, hitherto the divisional MD for the North-West, left the company yesterday.

Meanwhile HTFP can reveal that another senior JP executive quit last week ahead of the shake-up, which sees the number of mainland divisions reduced from five to four

Amanda Davidson-Young stood down as managing director of the company’s East Midlands Newspapers subsidiary, which includes the Peterborough Evening Telegraph.

JP has made no specific comment on Ms Davidson Young’s departure, but it was announced yesterday that she was being replaced by Richard Parkinson, currently managing director of Anglian Newspapers.

Other changes see the parent companies of the Sheffield Star, Derbyshire Times, Worksop Guardian, Mansfield Chad and associated titles move out of the North division and into the Midlands division.

Its headquarters is moving from Northampton to Sheffield and its divisional MD, Nick Mills, will now be based in the steel city.

Northeast Press Ltd, which includes the Hartlepool Mail and Sunderland Echo, will transfer from the North division to the Scottish division, to be renamed the Scotland & Northeast England division.

Staff in these companies will now report to Scottish divisional MD Michael Johnston.

Comments

Hilary (07/09/2010 12:27:24)
More blood on the carpet at JP…I would like to hope that this and the previous Steve Brown story are signs of better things to come, not worse

ivano (07/09/2010 13:03:07)
Life used to be local; then it became regional; now it’s…..
Dilution of local focus can only harm titles further.

Mr_Osato (07/09/2010 13:09:26)
the whole regional tier of management is a waste of time anyway. How much say did the regional managers have on the introduction of Atex? Absolutely none. All decisions are made centrally. The whole company is so centralised it brings to mind Stalin’s Soviet Union, and is highly likely to go the same way.

Scribbler (07/09/2010 14:14:10)
Totally agree with Mr Osato. We were not allowed by the courts to strike against JP central management as it was the local centres that apparently employed us. So why the need for divisional or regional MDs? Boot the lot of ’em!