A former daily and weekly newspaper editor has stepped into a new role as part of a revamped press and PR team at a large UK unitary authority.

Steve Brauner spent five years at the helm of Barrow’s North West Evening Mail and later responsible for re-launching the 174-year-old broadsheet Lancaster Guardian and The Visitor as a tabloid.

The award-winning journalist, pictured, was also assistant editor of the Liverpool Daily Post and for three years edited Crain’s Manchester Business, the first weekly publication of its kind in Western Europe.

Now Steve. along with former Granada Television and Sky news broadcast reporter and presenter Trevor Green, has joined Cheshire East as a media relations officer.

The pair have been recruited by the authority’s new head of communications and media, Beverley Walkden.

Beverley, who takes up the post of corporate manager of communications and media after three years in the north-west authority’s press office as a media relations officer, said was delighted with the new set-up.

She said: “My first task has been to recruit some really great people who are highly respected in their field and the team is already delivering some impressive results.”

Beverley started her career in journalism at the West Sussex County Times as a trainee reporter and also enjoyed spells at the Manchester Evening News and Macclesfield Express.

The Manchester-born journalist previously spent six years as a producer and on-screen journalist for Channel M in the city.