News International to sell Wapping site

News International, the British newspaper wing of Rupert Murdoch's global media empire, says it will sell its site in Wapping, east London, where it has been based for the past 25 years.

The move comes two months after the firm closed down its market-leading Sunday tabloid the News of the World, which operated out of Wapping, amid a scandal over the hacking of mobile phone voicemails.

"News International today announces it is putting its Wapping site up for sale," the company said yesterday in a statement.

The company's stable of titles, including the Sun, Britain's biggest selling daily tabloid, and respected daily the Times, will be entirely relocated to its neighbouring Thomas More Square base in east London, it added.

The majority of News International's Wapping-based editorial and commercial staff have already relocated into Thomas More Square and the remainder will move by the end of this year.

The company said as a result of "current market conditions" it had decided "not to proceed with re-modelling" the six-hectare Wapping site.

Wapping was the site of a bitter and sometimes violent confrontation between Australian-born Murdoch and Britain's print unions when he first moved the papers and his printing presses there in 1986.

The year-long strike effectively broke the grip of the print unions over the newspaper industry, ending in near-bankruptcy for the unions.

News International meanwhile did not lose a single night of production during the dispute.

- AAP