A long-standing Archant editor is leaving his role in a restructure which has seen his paper’s news team merged with that of a sister title.

Newham Recorder editor Colin Grainger, who joined the paper as a trainee reporter 40 years ago, is to leave Archant London as a result of the merger of its reporting team with the Docklands and East London Advertiser.

As part of the changes, the titles will each have a redesign, with larger pagination, increased separate news content and an improved shared entertainments section.

The free Stratford Recorder, which was launched last year with the axeing of Archant’s Stratford and Newham Express, has also been scrapped as an edition of the Newham Recorder.

As well as Colin, one other editorial role is at risk of redundancy, following a strategic review by new Archant East London group editor, Malcolm Starbrook, who will now edit both titles.

Said Malcolm: “Our newspapers continue to evolve and change in order to better reflect the needs of every community in which we publish, which means that we need constantly to review our circulation areas, formats and distribution.”

“East London is a highly-competitive market place and we need to provide vibrant, effective and sustainable newspapers that give news and information in strong and value-for money formats.”

“We are committed to continue to play this key role in producing both print and digital formats.”

The digital editions of the Docklands and East London Advertiser and Newham Recorder will be unaffected.