Revealed: How News Limited plotted Parramatta move
News Limited’s proposed Cumberland Media Centre.
News Limited has applied for and received planning approval for a new $51.9 million redevelopment of its offices in Parramatta, that could potentially serve as a new headquarters for Australia’s largest newspaper publisher.
However, the company has told Mumbrella’s sister title Encore that it has since shelved plans for the so-called ‘Cumberland Media Centre’, a two stage development that would have provided the company with more than 53,000 square metres of office space.
“Some years ago we submitted what was a nascent plan for a Cumberland Media Centre, which was approved. However, we decided some time ago not to progress with the idea,” said a News Limited spokesman.
The title of the facility comes from the historical name of the company’s local NSW operation Cumberland Newspapers.
While News Limited firmly maintains that it had no plans to relocate to Sydney’s west, we can reveal the publisher is planning major reorganization and consolidation of offices, including plans to “restack” its headquarters at Holt Street, Surry Hills.
The company employs several hundreds of people in Sydney however, it will not disclose the exact numbers.
“They are definitely planning on reorganising their property portfolio quite a bit this year,” said one Holt Street executive.
“From what I understand, there is going to be a restack of the whole building and by the end of the year the majority of people will be sitting at Holt Street or buildings very close to it,” said another.
The revelations comes amid persistent rumours that News Limited wants to move The Daily Telegraph out from the third floor of its Holt Street offices to make way for other properties such as its magazine and lifestyle division NewsLifeMedia, currently mainly based in Alexandria.
“Senior people at the Daily Telegraph have definitely been told that something is happening but the timing keeps changing,” said one News insider.
News Limited told Encore it has “no current plans” to move The Daily Telegraph. “There are no current plans to move The Daily Telegraph, its newsdesk or its staff from Holt Street”, said the spokesman.
News Limited did not comment on whether it had previously considered moving the tabloid newspaper, which has a strong readership in Sydney’s west.
Encore can reveal the development application approved by Parramatta Council would have seen News Limited build a two stage project. The first stage comprising of the demolition, of the existing building, which currently houses The Parramatta Advertiser and The Daily Telegraph’s Parramatta bureau, before construction of a six storey building, with more than 16,000 square metres of floor area space.
Under the application, submitted and approved in 2011 but previously unreported, stage one of the development has received development approval and was originally scheduled to begin in March of this year.
According to the plans, stage two would see the construction of a whole new building with more than 37,000 square metres of office space and was not scheduled to begin construction until 2014. So far this stage has only received conceptual plan approval.
The plans began before Kim Williams took over as News Limited CEO.
The union which represents journalists says it is concerned about the previously undisclosed plans for Parramatta and the impact they would have on staff if implemented.
Chris Warren, secretary of the Media Arts and Entertainment Alliance, told Encore: “A relocation and reorganisation on this scale requires full and proper consultation. This is about more than their legal obligation. This plan has the potential to cause major uncertainty and disruption.”
“News Limited should be open and transparent with their plans, and start treating staff with the respect they deserve,” he said.
News Limited insiders tell Encore that part of the reason rumours about a move West persist is Kim Williams’s decision, while CEO of Foxtel, to move the Pay-TV operator’s headquarters from Pyrmont to Macquarie Park, in the pursuit of cheaper rents.
Staff at The Daily Telegraph began hearing rumours that they would be moved from around July last year but have not been told officially of any decision to stay or relocate.
“Everyone has been worried about the move for a while now that this was going to happen,” said one Daily Telegraph staffer. “Holt Street is an institution, people base their lives around knowing that Surry Hills is where they are going to be working.”
“It seems so strange, I mean your readers might be out there (in Parramatta) but the stories you write still occur in town” said another staff member.
News Limited rents a number of properties in around the city including expensive harbour view offices in Liverpool Street, where it operates the website News.com.au, and another building nearby Holt Street where polling company Newspoll is housed. It also has offices in Alexandria where it houses Newslifemedia, its magazine brands.
News Limited said any details of a proposed office reorganisation would first be announced to staff. “While we may decide to reorganise our offices from time to time – as every business does – if or when we do so, it will be an internal matter which we will announce to our staff first,” said the spokesman.
- Thi
s article first appeared on the new weekly tablet edition of Mumbrella’s sister title Encore. To download the iPad edition click here. To download the Android edition clock here
Nic Christensen
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Did anyone tell the Aurora about this move ?
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This could take years. Firstly there is the the asbestos roofing, that will need to be removed. The other is that there would need to be an archealogical dig like have been done on similar neighbouring sites previously. Not to mention the heritage listing of the facade.
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If you don’t get shot, stabbed or robbed then Parramatta can be very cosmopolitan.
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Toby, we miss you!
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The Shakey won’t be happy either.
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News should have moved to Parramatta years ago instead of rebuilding Holt Street. Fairfax should have moved there too.
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23 km from the CBD? Not where I’d try to run a metro daily from (and don’t say Wapping, it’s far closer to London’s centre than Paramatta is to Sydney’s).
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Bill Posters, Parramatta is very close to the geographical and population centre of Sydney. Far closer than the CBD (in reality the Eastern Business District). If you wanted to run a news paper for all of Sydney it is better to be in the centre than on the fringe. Next time you read a Sydney newspaper, have a look at how many stories require a reporter to be in the business district to write them.
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Why “plotted”?
Why not “planned” or “considered”?
Or are those words not good enough link bait?
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Lindsay, I don’t dispute that Parramatta is at the geographical/population centre.
However, Parliament House, the Supreme Court, the Federal Court, the headquarters of Macquarie Bank and other big corporates, etc etc etc, are not. They are in the CBD.
It may not be the centre of population but it is the centre of power.
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Some may argue that News IS the centre of the Universe
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There’s plenty of room to “restack” – whatever that means – the gulag that is Holt St HQ. So many staff have been shown the ever-revolving front door in the last three years that the place looks like the aftermath in one of those disaster movies where almost everybody had died after a rabid disease has been unleashed. Row upon row of empty desks gathering dust in the editorial departments so, for starters, there’s more than enough room to bring in the mag division from the not so exciting environs of industrial Alexandria. Happy days ahead! All the workers together under the all-seeing eye of Chairman Kim!
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Bill Poster, the centre of power in a newspaper is where the production staff are and there is absolutely no reason for them to be sitting in expensive offices in sight of the Harbour Bridge. Given much of the sub editing for the SMH is now being done in Rhodes or New Zealand and the printing for the paper moved to Chullora (as did News Limited), it is reasonable to assume the reporter or two needed in the city could get there in a taxi.
You might like to also consider The Australian is printed and sold all over Australia with its main editorial office in Surry Hills. It has not stopped the paper reporting on Western Australia or Canberra. Some reporters even have mobile phones now.
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Bill Posters, Parliament House is in Canberra…
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Lindsay, The Australian has bureaux of reporters in Perth, Canberra, Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne even Darwin and Hobart. So not covering the nation from Surry Hills
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WD , the only thing that scares me about Parramatta is Westfield !
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Exactly my point OldJourno. Reporters can be or go anywhere they need to go. But as with The Australian where all the production work (the majority of the staff) is done in an office far removed from where the reporting is coming from, there is no need for the production staff to be in the same place as the reporters. Thank you for pointing that out.
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