The Kent Messenger Group has hired a former Trinity Mirror Southern managing director to the same role at the local newspaper publisher.

Graham Mead has worked in the regional press since 1993 and has recently worked as a consultant for Tindle, Johnston Press and KM Group.

KM Group said Mead would ‘be working plans to see it through the current economic downturn and to prepare it for the future”.

He starts on 20 January.