The new regional publishing joint venture Local World has announced plans to make an unconfirmed number of staff redundant in its finance and pre-press functions, including outsourcing jobs to India.
The news comes after chairman David Montgomery outlined plans to make Local World a “pure content and commerce business”.
Montgomery and chief executive Steve Auckland have previously spoken of their commitment to “resuscitate” the local press and said the staff cuts were made “in order to give Local World the best possible structure to achieve its goal of re-invigorating the UK regional media sector”.
The finance and pre-press sections were identified as areas of “overlap” following the deal to acquire Northcliffe Media and Iliffe News & Media.
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Local World said: “As a consequence of this review finance functions will be transferred from Cambridge and Burton to Leicester, and some pre-press activities will be outsourced from Cambridge to a facility in India already used by the group and others merged with activities in Nottingham.
“Where opportunities exist for affected employees to transfer to new locations these will be made available and discussed with employees who are now in a formal consultation period."
Auckland said: “This has not been an easy decision.
“I said when we announced the creation of Local World that we want to create a positive, engaging and pleasant place to work.
“That intention stands and these changes are an inevitable part of bringing together two businesses, not any reflection on strategy or performance.”
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