Coronation Street fans will be saying goodbye to builder Jason Grimshaw after the actor Ryan Thomas who plays him announced he is quitting the ITV soap - after 15 years in the role.
The actor will quit the show next year "to pursue new challenges".
In a statement, he said: "It has been a great privilege to be in Coronation Street for the past 15 years. The cast and crew are amongst the best in the business and to have had the chance to be a part of it for so long has been an amazing experience.
"The decision to leave was an extremely difficult one but I felt that now was the right time to spread my wings and try other roles. I'm just excited now to see what exit storyline the writers give Jason."
Producer Stuart Blackburn paid tribute to Thomas and said his character will be at the heart of a big upcoming storyline.
Blackburn said: "Ryan has been an important part of Coronation Street for 15 years. We wish him every success when he moves on next year and we appreciate his desire to try new things.
"In the coming months he'll be at the heart of a massive story, affecting not just his family but the Websters and the Windasses too, which will take us well into 2016."
The star's final scenes will air on the ITV soap next summer.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here