Dela-Croix : Garden Answers editor
Emap’s Garden Answers has a new editor ahead of a restructure.
Nicola Dela-Croix has moved from special projects to edit the title. She replaces Gail Major, who left in the summer.
Garden Answers is scheduled to undergo a redesign next spring. Dela-Croix said it was likely that new staff positions would be created but it was too early to comment on possible redundancies. "We are looking again at what readers want and we are in the middle of looking at whether to reposition it," she said.
"As part of the relaunch there will be a bit of restructuring and maybe new positions for journalists."
Dela-Croix was approached because of her experience leading the redesign of Country Walking. Despite an 8.8 per cent year-on-year fall in the latest ABCs, Garden Answers reported a 37 per cent rise period-on-period to 98,142. Emap will want to break the 100,000 barrier with the changes.
Dela-Croix edited Country Walking for two years, having also been deputy editor on Yours and Trail, which are also owned by Emap.
More recently, she has been working in special projects. "The special project is still bubbling away, but this is probably more of a priority," she said.
Country Walking has also seen a change of editor, with Jonathan Manning, editor of Emap’s automotive weekly Fleet News, moving across to take the helm.
Apart from a brief stint when he left to launch a pan-European spin-off Fleet News International, Manning has spent nearly eight years on Fleet News, working his way up from feature writer to features editor, deputy editor and then editor. Before Fleet News, he was assistant editor of Shooting Gazette.
Manning will replace deputy editor Richard Baker, who oversaw Country Walking while Dela-Croix was based in new projects. "I am really excited about it. Country Walking is a fantastic magazine already and it has got really good foundations on which to build and make it a cracking read," he said.
He added that he intends to develop various sections but there are no plans for a redesign.
John Maslen, managing editor of Fleet News, will be acting editor until a permanent replacement is found.
By Ruth Addicott
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