The company started a consultation with its employees on the redundancies at the end of last month.

Harmsworth Printing, which was formerly The Northcliffe Press, is in the process of building a brand new full-colour print site at Didcot in Oxfordshire, where full testing is expected to take place this autumn.

Once up and running, the £80m site, which will run Cerutti flexo presses, will give Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), which owns Harmsworth, a much larger capacity to print the Daily Mail and other titles, including the Gloucestershire Echo and Cheltenham News.

DMGT this week remained tight-lipped over the consultation. A spokeswoman said: “The company will not be making any media comments on this print site while it is in the process of consulting with its employees. Once the result of that consultation is known, then a statement will be issued.”

One newspaper expert speculated that a closure at Staverton could be the first of several at the company, due to the new presses.

The source said: “We could see more closures once the Didcot site is operational.”

Staverton runs a single-width Goss Tribune press capable of producing a 64pp tabloid and a single-width KBA Comet able to produce a 128pp tabloid.

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HARMSWORTH PRINTING FACTFILE
Serves local titles and some national newspaper printing
Sites Kingston upon Hull, Grimsby, Stoke-on-Trent, Derby, Leicester, Bristol, Plymouth, Staverton
Owner DMGT, which also runs flexo plant Harmsworth Quays Printing and is building a new site in Didcot, Oxfordshire