It’s genuine tin hat time for regional newspapers, and none more so than for Gannett-owned Newsquest, which is slashing editorial and commerical budgets across the country. Guardian.co.uk has been leaked an internal e-mail confirming up to 11 of the company’s north west England papers - including the Blackpool Citizen and Preston Citizen - will be shut.  Illustrating the collapse in auto sales and classified advertising, once a stable source of income for local papers, Newsquest’s Lancashire Auto Exchange and Manchester & Merseyside Auto Exchange will also close.

The Wilmslow and Bramhall Community News in Cheshire is under review and the Leigh Journal could be reorganised into a different Newsquest division, possibly affecting 12 jobs. The company is also considering creating a single classified ads operation to serve three of its newspaper chains - the Guardian series, Messenger series and Wirral Globe newspapers. Sales staff in Wirral and Sale are at risk of redundancy and the company’s Knutsford and Chorley offices will close. Add all this to on-going staff reductions at Newsquest’s Glasgow, York, Bradford and Darlington centres, and you have a company that is seriously in retreat.  More highlights of Newsquest’s cost-savings after the jump..

—Worcester: The Worcester News reports that Newsquest’s Worcester division, including that paper and the Berrow’s Worcester Journal, the Malvern Gazette and the Evesham Journal are to be hit with restructuring and eight redundancies. The papers’ publisher Ian Richardson says: “Against the backdrop of an unsettled economy we must take opportunities to reduce costs so we can protect the overall business for the future.”

—South west Wales: The National Union of Journalists (via HTFP) is warning that Newsquest’s South Wales Guardian in Amanford will lose one reporter while the Milford Mercury’s office in Milford Haven is to be shut, costing two jobs. Sources tell HTFP that pre-press and advertising jobs are to go in South Wales.

—Bolton It only opened it in 2001 at a cost of £17 million, but Newsquest is now considering shutting its printing plant in Bolton. Newsquest Bolton MD Chris Hughes says in a memo to staff (from HTFP): “Conditions during 2008 have deteriorated dramatically as the year has progressed. You will know from your work here that paginations are down significantly.”

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