A political editor at two sister dailies has been promoted to a newly-created group-wide role.

Annabelle Dickson, left, has been appointed as group political editor at Archant with immediate effect, after working at the Eastern Daily Press and East Anglian Daily Times for the last two years.

In her role as political editor, she helped shape the General Election coverage across all of Archant’s newspapers and websites.

Annabelle, who will continue to report to EDP editor Nigel Pickover, is also chairman of the Newspaper Conference, which represents London-based correspondents of regional newspapers.

Bob Crawley, Archant’s interim chief content officer, said: “Annabelle’s brief will now be expanded and, in line with the One Archant philosophy, she will give support and guidance to all our content teams helping further improve our political coverage.

“Her next project is party conference season, which starts next month. Once that is complete Annabelle, who already knows many of the MPs representing constituencies where we have titles, will talk with all our editors about her new role and how she can support them.”

Other recent job moves in the regional press include the following:

• Dean Kirby, who was previously a senior reporter at the Manchester Evening News, has been appointed northern correspondent at the Independent.
• Tui Benjamin, who was health reporter at The Bolton News, has been appointed news editor at Mercury Press Agency.
• Teesside Evening Gazette health reporter Sarah Walker has left to become an e-communications officer at South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
• Bill Tanner has left the Hereford Times, where he was a senior reporter.
• James Morris has been appointed a senior reporter at the Islington Gazette.
• Anna Verdon has left the Kent & Sussex Courier to join Ferrari Press Agency.
• Tom Cotterill will leave his role as chief reporter at the Littlehampton Gazette to become defence correspondent at The News in Portsmouth.
• Kingston Guardian news editor Ross Logan has left the paper to go freelance and his role has been taken on by Nazia Dewji.