DAVID LEWIS, chief executive of the Kent Messenger Group, is leaving the post.

Mr Lewis has been a member of the KM Board for more than ten years and formerly served as editorial director of the county's leading media operation. He will leave the company on April 30.

Mr Lewis is stepping down to enable him to spend more time with his wife, Brenda, who has been fighting cancer for the past six years.

The Kent Messenger Group, which employs 750 staff across 19 Kent offices, achieved a number of regional press industry awards during Mr Lewis's tenure and developed a network of seven local radio stations in the transition to an organisation which is in the top ten regional groups in the country.

The company's flagship title, the Kent Messenger, has grown to become the UK's highest circulating weekly newspaper and with the group’s other paid-for and free newspapers attracts over one million readers in the region each week.

Mr Lewis said: "It has been a privilege working with the family shareholders, directors and staff.

"The organisation has a strong management team and will continue the evolution of a newspaper business into a multi-media company focussed very much on Kent and its communities.

"While it is difficult to leave the business at such an exciting stage in its development, my family must come first."

Geraldine Allinson, chairman of the KM Group, said: "We are sad to see David go. He has been a tower of strength over the past ten years, a period in which the KM has had unprecedented growth and expansion, including launching papers in Bexley and Bromley, expanding our kmfm network of radio stations serving Kent, and building a strong senior management team.

"Along with my father Edwin Boorman, the former chairman and now president of the KM Group, I have worked closely with David, and respect his decision to have more time with his wife."

She added: "We are sorry to lose him. The Kent Messenger board and all KM staff wish him well.”