A weekly newspaper’s print plant is facing possible closure with the loss of 28 jobs, with an unspecified number of editorial redundancies also in the pipeline.
Newbury News Limited has announced it is in consultation with its print staff over the potential closure of the Faraday Road plant after two external clients decided to take their business elsewhere.
The company, which also owns the Newbury Weekly News, says it was finding it increasingly hard to compete with larger group-owned plants.
The Newbury Weekly News is also in consultation with staff over possible editorial redundancies although it has declined to give further details.
The print room at the Newbury News Limited plant
The proposed print closure comes after the loss of two external contract customers – the Isle of Wight County Press and the Maidenhead Advertiser.
Newsquest, which bought the County Press earlier this year, has decided it will be printed on its own presses from January.
According to a story on the Weekly News’ companion website, Newbury Today, one option is for the print plant to remain open but with fewer staff.
It said: “One of the options under consideration is to keep the Faraday Road plant live but reduce from a two-shift to one-shift staffing structure.”
The Weekly News is currently printed in-house on the Faraday Road presses. The Newbury Today story said the paper “remains highly viable and will continue to be published as usual.”
Newbury Weekly News editor Andy Murrill has declined to comment further on the potential editorial redundancies. Newsquest has also declined to comment.
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More ‘ locally decided’ redundancies and certainly not a company wide directive to cut the head count and overheads?
NQs policy of shedding jobs by year end continues apace
Happy Christmas NQ staff
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@Jazzie
This isn’t a Newquest operation they’re an independent. It’s because of losing the newly purchased NQ titles that they need to consolidate. Unfortunately it kind of makes sense for once if it has gone in to the Southampton centre. There’s very little point in paying an external printer or the extra transport costs when their own center is round the corner from the docks.
It’s been a bad few years for Newbury as I’m sure they were doing titles for both Tindle and TM at one point, all of which have now gone internal press or JP in Portsmouth
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No I appreciate that @formerloyal however NQ must have had a longer term view as to their publishing needs when they purchased the press and made some kind of agreement to continue which has since been over turned and which now means more staff will face the axe.
It’s yet another announcement in which NQ and job losses are intrinsically linked and on the back of more NQ jobs being axed announced elsewhere on HTFP today
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