Leader leaves Wrexham – office closure means town no longer has any newspaper office for first time in over 180 years

The Leader office on the High Street has closed, ending Wrexham’s long history of newspaper offices dating back nearly two centuries.

Wrexham’s Leader office in the Butcher Market entrance building was split between ‘Travel Time’ downstairs and an office upstairs for reporters. We are told three people downstairs were told just before Christmas that they would be losing their jobs.

Wrexham.com had heard from informed council sources that NWN were looking for local ‘hot desk’ space in the Library, however when we enquired if such a tax payer subsidised desk was a reality we were told it had been explored at a ‘low level’ but was not happening.

We have been unable to get official Newsquest comment, nor have spotted any announcement aside from a belatedly placed poster in the now vacant downstairs door window of the office.

Thanks to the team at Wrexham-History.com who pointed us to research by Lisa Peters that documents the history of newspapers in Wrexham, going back to the “Wrexham Registrar and People’s Friend” in the mid 1800’s, it appears the town has always had a newspaper office regardless of what title was in favour. With the Daily Post already gone from Wrexham, the Leader was the only newspaper left, as documented on the Wrexham History site the Leader had offices on Regent Street, and more recently had large offices on King Street and then the smaller set up on High Street.

Last year the Leader publisher’s NWN was sold off for millions by the then family owners to Newsquest, a company ultimately owned by Gannett Company Inc an american multi billion dollar megacorp. The Leader always made much of it’s “family owned” and ‘local’ presence tags in it’s commercial activities, with both now gone.

Since NWN’s sale it appears the family retained some freehold ownership of previous NWN buildings, including the Mold office that Wrexham staff look likely to use. The Mold office was listed for sale earlier this year, with rumours resurfacing in Mold lately of long term housing plans for the site,  although when this story was picked up elsewhere, Newsquest branded it a ‘non story‘.

Newsquest’s changes have been ongoing, with a 44 year old title up the road quietly binned off a year ago, and Wrexham’s weekend ‘big’ Leader being removed as the daily leader was rolled out to six days a week, a move that was amusingly spun by one NWN’er as launching a new paper while ignoring the cessation of the town’s freebie stalwart title.

In October other job losses were announced, with two photographer roles cut as well as a content editor.

Wrexham.com has always had a town centre office during it’s relatively short life, a decision we made on startup as we felt it was important, rather than opting for a far cheaper option of remote working. Hopefully the much more well funded Newquest operation will reconsider their local cuts and give Wrexham the respect and resource it deserves.