Newsquest to close Newport production hub with job losses

Newsquest is going to close its production hub in Newport with the loss of 14 jobs, the regional publisher has said.

The facility provides sub-editing for weekly newspapers across the UK as well as a Scottish daily paper.

Work will transfer to another editing hub in Weymouth, with the company blaming costs.

It opened in 2013 and, at its peak, employed more than 70 people subbing 100 daily and weekly newspapers.

But two rounds of redundancies last year saw the workforce reduced.

In a letter to staff, the company said: "Following a review of the costs of each of the two copy editing hubs it is proposed that all copy editing work will cease to continue in Newport from April 7.

"All content is proposed to be copy edited in the Weymouth hub from 10 April in order to achieve the most efficient and cost effective process."

Consultation with staff began on Monday.

A Newsquest spokesman said: "Due to an improvement in workflow across all of our newsrooms, the workload has reduced significantly within the Group Editorial Services Copy Editing function.

"With so much of newspaper copy-editing work now no longer being required, it is anticipated that the copy-editing department in Newport will not need the same staffing levels going forward.

"While this proposal regrettably places 13.85 FTE roles at risk of redundancy, we continue to employ a significant number of staff for other group editorial services in Newport."