He will oversee its expansion plans of 29 weeklies and 30 community websites.

Crawley, previously editor of the Peterborough Evening Telegraph, is returning to newspapers after a decade. He moved to Archant ten years ago to launch the culture and entertainment website EDP24 and sport website Pink'Un.

Recently, Crawley has been the managing director of Archant's contract and customer publishing arm, Archant Dialogue.