Former Coronation Street actor, John Savident has revealed that he would like to have stayed on in the show but bosses refused to givehim a lighter work load.

John played Fred Elliot on the show and says he approached show bosses about his decision to leave, hoping they would offer him some sort of deal, it didn’t happen.

“I did think they might find some way to accommodate me,” he told The People. “Quite honestly I was surprised and disappointed that they didn’t try a bit harder.

“I told them a year in advance that I was going and then they took me out for dinner and said, ‘We’re not going to insult you, John, by trying to make you stay’. And I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Please, go on, insult me’.”

Savident also revealed that many of the casts perks and bonuses have been cut during recent years.

“Granada were becoming increasingly mean. All the nice little extras that the cast enjoyed were being whittled away,” he explained. “The subsistence allowance – basically for working away from home – only got paid for the first couple of years you were in the show, not for five, as it had been.

“Holiday pay was slashed. I think Liz Dawn, who played Vera Duckworth, was in floods of tears and someone like Bill Roache (Ken Barlow) must have lost a small fortune. And then Granada reduced the weekly retainer we got for showing ‘loyalty’ to the programme, from £470 to £100 a week. Loyalty clearly doesn’t mean a thing now, especially in television.”

The actor will return to screens with a new role on ITV1 crime drama Above Suspicion next weekend.