Actor Colson Smith is the latest to go under new boss Kate Brooks, who warned last month there were some big exits coming this year

Coronation Street’s Colson Smith will be axed from the soap this summer, after 14 years as Craig Tinker.

One insider said the actor, 26, was told that his police officer character’s time in Weatherfield was ending, several months ago.

The source revealed: “Colson was told last autumn about Craig being written out of the show, he will be on screen until early summer. He is hugely grateful to have had 14 years working on the show and is excited about what promises to be a brilliant exit storyline. He is very positive about what the future holds for the next part of his career.”

Colson confirmed to the Mirror that he has been aware of his character’s departure for a while. “Autumn last year I was told that Craig Tinker’s time on the Cobbles is to come to an end in 2025. I’ve LOVED every single second of my 14 year stay as a resident on the greatest street in the world.”

Colson Smith in his role as a Corrie copper alongside Lisa Swain, played by Vicky Myers ( 
Image:
ITV)

The actor, who lost a staggering 10 stone during and after lockdown, insisted he felt nothing but positive about the future. “I feel incredibly lucky to have grown up in, on and around Coronation Street,” he said. “I’ve learnt pretty much everything about life from the people who call it home. I’m excited to play out the exit story for Our Craigy.

“For me, this is the end of the beginning. I genuinely can’t wait to see what chapter two has in store for me.” And showing he has no bitterness towards the soap’s new boss Kate Brooks, he added: “Long live the cobbles!”

Brooks told last month that she was going to be wielding the axe during 2025, saying: “There are a few exits this year, and some unexpected ones that will send shockwaves.”

Colson was just 11 when he joined the show and long struggled with unhealthy eating habits and weight gain. He told the Mirror in 2021 that moving to Manchester aged 17 had made things worse, explaining: “When everyone else was at uni, I’m sat on bloody Deliveroo every night. So I kind of had got myself into a really unhealthy position where food was a self-harm to me. It was my comfort and I didn’t realise how much damage I was doing to myself with it.”

But having decided to get healthy, he shared his weight loss journey in a YouTube film entitled Bored of Being the Fat Kid which told how he’d used a life coach to help him go from being 22 stone to around 12.

Colson took part in ITV reality show Celebrity Big Brother last spring and also appeared on ITV’s jungle spin-off show I’m a Celebrity: Unpacked at the end of the year.

The actor is the latest of many to leave the soap in recent months. Craig’s on-screen mum, Beth Tinker, left the show in the summer when actress Lisa George was written out. Christmas saw the departure of Helen Worth, who decided to quit the cobbles after 50 years of playing Gail Platt.

And this weekend it emerged that Sue Cleaver, who has played Eileen Grimshaw for the past 25 years, is also on her way out.