Trinity Mirror announces more local newspaper closures

Trinity Mirror will close four free local weekly newspaper titles later this month.

The group will close the Canterbury Times Series in Kent, which publishes Canterbury, Whitstable, Herne Bay and Faversham editions. The final editions will be published week commencing 25 September 2017.

A statement from Trinity Mirror said: "Following a review of our portfolio we are regretfully proposing to close the Canterbury Times series (Whitstable/Herne Bay/Faversham) as they are no longer commercially sustainable.

“These markets will continue to be served by our growing site www.kentlive.news which reached an average of 404,000 people a week in August, an increase of 91% year-on-year, and has a social media following of more than 60,000.”

The group added there would be no job losses as a result of these closures, which follows its announcement last week that it will also be closing three weekly titles in Cambridgeshire - Newmarket News, Haverhill News and Ely News.

Trinity Mirror is the UK’s biggest national and regional publisher and posted group turnover of £713m in 2016, including contract printing revenues of £25.4m. Last month it was announced that the group had reached agreement on new “mutually supportive” multi-year printing contracts.