Journalists are set to relocate to a new office and a “much improved working environment” 20 miles from their current home.
Trinity Mirror has confirmed 22 staff currently based in Folkestone will move to a new base at Discovery Park, a science park on the outskirts of Sandwich.
Those affected by move include journalists working for news website Kent Live, as well as weekly titles the Folkestone Herald, Dover Express, and Isle of Thanet Gazette.
The Folkestone office in West Cliff Gardens will close, but the company says no jobs will be affected as a result of the move.
Discovery Park, the new home of Kent Live
Kent Live brands editor Luke Jacobs said: “The Kent Live team, which is also responsible for multiple print titles in the county, including the Folkestone Herald, Dover Express, and Isle of Thanet Gazette, will remain based close to the areas served by these newspapers.
“The Folkestone office will close, and this new office will offer staff a much improved working environment.
“Jobs are unaffected and reporters will remain working within the communities served by the newspapers. We will continue to provide a quality local news service.”
Discovery Park is around a 40-minute drive from the current Folkestone office. Five other new companies have also recently announced they are moving there.
Lauren Moore, from Discovery Park’s investment team, said: “Discovery Park is Kent’s global science and business park, with world class facilities that has helped to make this site a magnet for businesses of all sizes.
“It’s a place where you can arrive with an idea and know that you can access the right support, the right collaborative environment and the right space to grow – from a small desk or one man office right up to European headquarters or UK production facility.
“Our new arrivals are at the start of their journey; while those expanding are seeing the benefits of being located here.
“They join us at an exciting time in Discovery Park’s development and we wish them and all our tenants every future success.”
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Looks like there won’t be any reporters based on the ground in places like Folkestone and they will have a 40-minute drive from new offices, if they manage to get away from their desk. Other companies have done this, and it has left towns without any reporters based on their patch and badly diluted news gathering. A science park does not sound an ideal place to pick up stories, but on the other hand staff will get swish offices.
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I wonder how many stories will ‘walk in’ off the street? Answer: none! Having newspapers on business parks is nothing new. I experienced working at the MK Citizen (great paper as it was then) in the early 2000s, located in Bletchley at a business park, having worked at a town centre newspaper in Boston. It was a bit of a disappointed not to get people walking in with stories but at least we could still go out with the snapper for a story – something I always liked to do to try and ‘frame’ the story.
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The location doesn’t matter any more if you’re filling your website with traffic reports and stories entitled “From Bluewater to Westwood Cross -these are all the big brand names opening soon at shopping centres in Kent”. Unfortunately that’s the way things have gone now…
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