A small number of journalists at the Telegraph & Argus and its sister weekly newspapers took part in a one-day strike yesterday over plans to introduce a new editorial computer system to improve the production of the newspapers and their websites.

Fewer than a quarter of the journalists employed at the T&A’s parent company, Newsquest Bradford, took part in the union ballot and of those only 12 people voted in favour of strike action.

Publication of the newspapers and websites went ahead as normal.

The journalists, all members of the National Union of Journalists, were protesting at the transfer of some work to a production centre in Newport, Wales.

Newsquest Yorkshire & North-East regional managing director David Coates said: “The media industry is facing huge structural change and Newsquest Yorkshire & North-East has responded by investing in a state-of-the-art editorial system which will enable us to publish our content far more efficiently across multi-digital platforms and in print.”

“A commitment has already been given that there will be no compulsory redundancies,” said Mr Coates.

“All key editorial decisions and judgments will continue to be made in Bradford, including final checking and output of pages to our print centres. News gathering by an unrivalled number of local reporters and photographers is completely unaffected."