A good news message to all our readers

Dear Reader,

You may have seen or heard reports over the weekend that the owner of your newspaper and website, Johnston Press, was placed into administration.

Today we can announce we are owned by a new operating company - called JPIMedia - under a new financial arrangement that safeguards your newspaper and website.

Johnston Press had been conducting a strategic review of its finances over the past 18 months to restructure its debts and assets.

This weekend saw the company placed into an administrative process, and acquired by those who previously owned our debt.

This is good news for our news title as it safeguards your newspaper and website, continues the employment of all our staff and helps us to have a more stable and secure future.

Our journalists will continue to report on the stories you would expect us to. There will be no change to our editorial policies, the values we hold, our editorial independence or our commitment to the Editor’s Code and IPSO guidelines.

While this review has been taking place our journalists and commercial staff have continued to operate as normal, bringing you the unrivalled quality news, sport and information you expect of us. Nothing has changed about that today.

My commitment to you our readers, newsagents and retailers is that we will continue to serve you in the best way we can, with the quality you would expect and to nurture the unique community relationship we have with you.

We value the trust you have in our content very highly and rely on you, our readers and customers, to support us and our industry.

You will be well aware of the challenges our industry faces. We still face those challenges today. You can support us through continuing to buy our titles, visiting our websites and advertising in our products.

Thank you for your support and kind messages over the weekend as we entered and emerged through this process.