Trinity Mirror has confirmed it is closing a fourth free weekly newspaper just a day after it announced three others would be shutting down.
No jobs are said to be at risk as a result of the Crawley News and its associated website crawleynews.co.uk being closed by the publisher.
Yesterday, six roles were said to be on the line after Trinity Mirror announced the closure of OneMK in Milton Keynes, Luton on Sunday and the Northampton Herald and Post.
All four titles are part of the Local World group which was bought by Trinity Mirror in a £220m deal last November.
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The East Grinstead Courier is also understood to be merging with the Kent Sussex Courier, meaning the former will be a change edition of the latter, sharing its content, rather than a standalone title.
A Trinity Mirror spokesperson said: “We continually review our print and digital portfolio to mitigate the ongoing challenges of print and advertising markets.
“Our strategy across the group is to ensure we focus on markets where we are able to grow audience and revenue.
“It’s for this reason we’ve been forced to close free weekly the Crawley News and its website crawleynews.co.uk.
“The East Grinstead Courier will continue as a distinct title with its own masthead, and we remain committed to serving quality print and digital news to the local audience in this area.
“There will be no job losses as a result of these changes.”
Former Croydon Advertiser editor Glenn Ebrey said he had spent four “happy years” working at the Crawley News.
He said on Twitter: “The News had been struggling financially for a while and needed something radical to keep it alive.
Not sure abandoning local news and sport and cutting staff levels to the bone was the blue-sky thinking they were after though.”
Crawley News had a an average print circulation of 16,039 copies, according to the latest ABC figures.
The NUJ has described Trinity Mirror’s repeated cuts as a “merry-go-round of misery”.
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