The two oldest newspapers on the West Coast — the Greymouth Star and Hokitika Guardian — are to merge into one new daily paper from November.

It will be known as The West Coast Times, in both a nod to the past and confidence in the future as the new regional paper.

After 160 and 161 years respectively, the Star and the Guardian have served this region faithfully since the earliest goldrush era.

Our pages are a record of the life and history of the West Coast and its people, and by amalgamating the titles we can continue adding to that record confidently.

At the same time, the format will change from the traditional broadsheet to a more modern tabloid style, already familiar to Hokitika Guardian readers. Publication will be regulated to five days a week, Monday to Friday, with Saturday publication to cease.

Currently the Guardian is published in the morning and the Star in the afternoon, whereas the new title will be an afternoon paper, 20 to 24 pages daily, and delivered straight to your letterbox. It will continue to be produced and printed at our Greymouth base.

Readers will also notice a fresh layout, but with the same regular features and particular focus on local content that means most to West Coasters.

The name The West Coast Times is in itself part of history and will be especially familiar to our Hokitika subscribers as the former name of the Hokitika Guardian. The Guardian’s ancestor was the original West Coast Times, the first issue of which appeared in 1865.

In 1917 the Times and the rival Guardian merged under the Hokitika Guardian masthead. In 1988 it reverted to the West Coast Times and then back again to the Hokitika Guardian in February, 2008.

Subscribers of both papers will be carried over automatically to the relaunched West Coast Times, with no rate change in the current billing cycle.