The group has confirmed that jobs will be cut through a two-year programme that will bring the likely closure of four print sites and redundancies in other areas of the group's activities, including editorial and advertising.

NNG, the regional division of Daily Mail & General Trust, expects the first phase of the two-year reorganisation to cost around 6.5m.
As first revealed by PrintWeek, presses in Lincoln, Grimsby and Hull are to be replaced by a single site at Elsham Wold in North Lincolnshire by the end of 2007.

A 30-day consultation period is currently underway at the group's Exeter site, which runs two single-width presses. Its likely closure will cause up to 70 job losses as work is consolidated at the recently modernised Plymouth plant.

NNG managing director Michael Pelosi said that the investment of around 150m over the past three years had shown "our commitment to producing high quality regional newspapers."

By Josh Brooks