Four weekly editors at a group of Johnston Press titles have taken voluntary redundancy triggering a reshuffle of senior editorial roles.
The publisher introduced an enhanced voluntary redundancy package last autumn in a bid to reduce ongoing costs with hundreds of journalists subsequently leaving the business.
The latest departures include four editors at JP titles in the South Midlands, leading to their roles being combined with those of other editors.
The four are Jim Stewart of the Bedford Times and Citizen and Biggleswade Chronicle, Charles Ladrook of the Louth Leader, Eileen Green of the Rutland and Stamford Mercury and, as previously reported, Mike Cooke of the Melton Times.
All of the roles vacated have now been taken on by other JP editors in the region.
The Bedford Times and Citizen will now be edited by Olga Norford, who is also editor of the Milton Keynes Citizen, while the Biggleswade Chronicle will come under Luton News editor Lynn Hughes.
Mark Edwards, editor of the Peteborough Telegraph, will now additionally have responsibility for the Stamford Mercury, while Paul Fisher will oversee the Louth Leader in addition to the Market Rasen Mail and Horncastle News.
Finally Paul Richardson, editor of the Grantham Journal, will combine this role with that of Melton Times editor following Mike’s departure.
Also on the move shortly is John Francis, currently editor of the Hemel Hempstead Gazette, whose duties will pass to Bucks Herald news chief Roger Hawes in Aylesbury.
Meanwhile Northampton Chronicle and Echo editor and South Midlands group editor David Summers’ role has been extended and both Lynn Hughes and Olga Norford will now report to him.
The changes will also see the closure of the reception desks at all the South Midlands titles, although the newsrooms themselves will remain.
A Johnston Press spokeswoman said: “Although all front counters have been closed, no further offices are being closed in the foreseeable future, so teams remain based in their local towns.”
An earlier JP statement on the Bedford changes led Local World-owned title Bedfordshire on Sunday to report incorrectly that the Times and Citizen was moving to Milton Keynes, when in fact most of its staff are remaining in Bedford.
Johnston Press has since apologised to the paper for what Richard Parkinson, managing director of JP Midlands, called a “PR screw-up.”
Sign up for our free daily email bulletin
Follow HTFP on Twitter
Got a story? Email the Editor at
Peterborough and Stamford marketing areas compete for the same readership, as do Louth, Market Rasen and Horncastle so I doubt if the readers in these five distinct towns will get the service they have had or indeed deserve from the increasingly stretched editorial management now imposed by JP. Having worked in all five, I know they have got it badly wrong – again. Richard Tear, ex news editor Stamdford Mercury and executive editor Lincolnshire Standard Group.
Report this comment
Credit to Richard Parkinson for his admission of a “PR screw-up”. If only the past management that caused the debt had been so honest and not walked away taking their bonuses. “Although all front counters have been closed, no further offices are being closed in the foreseeable future, so teams remain based in their local towns” – this rather sounds like an admission that all offices would be open, and local, if the debt were not so huge.
Report this comment
Rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic?
Report this comment
As someone who has already departed the JP ship, I feel extremely sorry for the remaining staff who will by now be stretched to breaking point. To continue the Titanic analogy, working in any JP editorial department will be like trying to bail out a sinking ship with a thimble. I wish those of you who remain the very best of British… and hope you can escape very soon, if you want to.
Report this comment
What becomes of John Francis now? Is he being shifted to an even more senior position? Or has he simply become too expensive?
Report this comment
Happy to let Horatio know the score, and thanks for asking – I’ll be saying goodbye to full-time service with JP after a 33-year stretch (and nigh on 40 years in the business) later this year and count myself fortunate to be in a position to do so.
I’ll be available to my former colleagues on a freelance basis for whatever services they think I can offer, but I’ll have other irons in the fire as well.
I helped create the new structure for JP papers in this part of the world so nobody can say I didn’t see it coming or don’t believe it’s the right way to shape up for the future, and my decision to downshift a bit has been entirely amicable.
Too expensive? Excuse the hollow laugh – anyone who knows me, and any other editor who still has passion for the job, knows that if you factor in all the unpaid hours even a group editor’s lavish package is trimmed back to what would be a fairly modest hourly rate.
That’s never been a problem for me, I’ve always been faintly surprised that I’ve been able to make a living for this long out of having such a laugh.
Sorry if anyone was expecting an embittered rant, but like the rest of my Premier colleagues who left the company last week, all of whom are looking to the future and not griping about the past, I realise that times change and you have to be prepared to change with them. As another Horatio once said: Kismet, Hardy. Well, that’s what I’ve got in my notes…
Report this comment
Jumped or pushed, John? You fail to say.
So vociferous in your defence of the closure of your own offices yet you didn’t stay long to see how home working affected the reporter’s work rate or quality of the paper.
Although ‘your decision to downshift a bit has been entirely amicable’ smacks of a pay off.
Shame to see another experienced editor leaving the business, but wonder what the industry would look like if a few more editors had fought against the changes rather than made weak arguments in defence of them.
Report this comment