Staff were told on 20 May to stop working, and that their contracts had been terminated, according to the Press Gazette, at which point the paper’s website was shut down.
The paper’s final print edition went out on 23 May, also the final day on which its X feed was updated. It is believed to have entered into insolvency proceedings, the Press Gazette reported.
The South London Press, particularly known for high quality sports journalism and original journalism covering core boroughs of Lewisham, Southwark, Lambeth and Wandsworth, had been printed twice weekly as recently as 2018.
Notice of the closure came just days after two of the largest sports stories on its patch in years fell into its hands – and went unreported: Crystal Palace’s victory in the FA Cup Final and Charlton Athletic’s promotion to the EFL Championship.
Passing through several owners in recent years, the paper was acquired by Street Runners, a leaflet distribution company, in 2017 under its legal name of MSI Media.
According to its media pack, it had a weekly print run of 47,500 and was available across 1,000 outlets in London.
The paper, founded in 1865 by newspaperman James Henderson, was printed in recent memory at Reach’s West Ferry printworks before the site’s closure in 2012, though it is unclear where the paper was printed after that.
The South London Press’ sports editor Richard Cawley, an 18-year veteran of the paper, was first to break news of its closure.
He posted on X: “Really sad news. South London Press is no more. Want to thank everyone who has helped the paper on the sports side.
“Been a source of real pride to work on the paper for the past 18 years – plus also had a two-year spell in the late 90s. Superb patch to cover for sport. Huge amount of fun.
“Can’t say [I] didn’t expect this day to come though.”
In recent years, the paper had expanded its reach from its traditional four boroughs often relying on BBC local democracy reporters to cover a wider patch of 15 boroughs to gather “lucrative” local authority advertising, according to The Greenwich Wire.
Nearly 300 UK local newspapers have closed since 2005, according to Press Gazette research. In 2022, the local regional news sector brought in just a quarter of the revenue it had in 2007.
