The firm, which publishes titles including the Shropshire Star and Express & Star, has removed the four-high Goss Colorliner tower from its West Bromwich plant, where capacity has been cut in the past two years.

The tower is being refurbished by Goss at its Preston plant and should be installed at Ketley by October.

The Ketley site, which prints around 1.2m copies of daily and weekly newspapers each week, has two presses; one with three colour towers and another with two.

The four-high tower from West Bromwich will be added to the latter, replacing three Crabtree units.

The modified, 670mm cut-off press will also feature a J2:5:5 folder and will be able to print 96 pages collect in full colour, or 48 tabloid pages straight.

Graeme Clifford, MNA's works and technical director, said the addition of the third colour tower would provide security if anything happened to the other press.

New spraybars will also be added to the relocated tower, as well as others in the modified line, and to three Goss Colorliner towers on the other press at Ketley.

Clifford said the Ketley press room would be able to "run seamlessly while the project is being carried out".

MNA's other main newspaper-printing plant is in Wolverhampton.

The company prints around 60,000 copies per day of the Shropshire Star and 40,000 of the Express & Star.