A major re-launch of the Birmingham-based Sunday Mercury this weekend aims to make it “lighter and brighter”.

The radical redesign, including a host of new features, comes just 10 weeks after editor David Brookes and deputy editor Paul Cole took up their posts after previously working on the Birmingham Evening Mail.

Mr Cole said: “We will be keeping the big, hard news investigations which we are known for, but we want to make it lighter and brighter, with a sense of humour and a design which displays stories so that they have the highest possible impact.”

The redesign will also allow more use of colour throughout the paper.

Central to the new look are a 32-page sports pull-out, a new 16-page lifestyle section and a revamped TV magazine. All three sections, including the main paper, will be stitched.

A big promotional push for the new-look paper features TV funnyman Jasper Carrott who has scripted, and stars in, a series of radio adverts across six ILR stations.

There are sure to still be plenty of good exclusives for the nationals to try to pass off as their own – as the Daily Star did with last Sunday’s page one Mercury exclusive about a planning permission row involving a Big Brother contestant.

Several new staff have joined the Mercury news team in time for the relaunch. They include: reporter Martyn Leek from the Chase Post; Paul Malley, who was deputy chief reporter on the Shropshire Star and Julie Shaw a former sub at the Coventry Evening Telegraph. The sports department has been joined by Theresa Phillips from the Bromsgrove Advertiser Series and Rob Owen from the South Wales Argus.

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