The Stevenage Herald has been merged with its sister paper, The Comet.

The last edition of the Herald hit the streets on Wednesday, and readers who had the free paper delivered to their home will now receive a copy of The Comet instead.

Both newspapers had been published by Archant and shared the same reporters and editor, Darren Isted.

He told HoldtheFrontPage that the reorganisation had allowed some savings to be made, but it had not resulted in any redundancies.

He said: "The decision has been driven by The Comet, which has really proved successful in terms of financial performance and awards.

"It has got to the stage where The Comet is such a dominant force that a business decision was made to integrate the Herald."

Launched 17 years ago, the Stevenage Herald was previously owned by Thomsons and Home Counties Newspapers before being bought by Archant in the late 1990s.

It had been delivered to 15,000 homes every Wednesday, and the move means The Comet, which is published every Thursday, now has a distribution of 88,000.