The fire started at around 12.45pm at the site on Whitehall Road, Lower Wortley. The cause of the fire is not known but West Yorkshire Police set up a safety cordon around the site, which is about half a mile south of Leeds railway station.
We have 10 fire engines at a large building fire in Whitehall Road, Lower Wortley, #Leeds Further updates to follow.
— West Yorkshire Fire (@West_Yorks_FRS) October 7, 2016
West Yorkshire Fire Service tweeted updates, stating first that 10 fire engines had been sent to the fire at the disused commercial building, which is around 3,000sqm in size.
A source told PrintWeek that the fire may have started in Petty's old press hall, which still contains a Goss Sunday 4000 press, a Baker Perkins G16, two short-grain Lithomans and a bindery.
The fire service said 40% of the building had been involved in the fire but nobody had been injured, although early reports indicated there were four people inside the site, which has supposedly been disused since it was closed just prior to Christmas 2014.
Crews at Lower Wortley fire protected 3 surrounding buildings. They' ll be there overnight, @WestYorksPolice are dealing with rd closures.
— West Yorkshire Fire (@West_Yorks_FRS) October 7, 2016
A statement from the fire service said that fire crews remained onsite throughout Friday and left around 3pm on Saturday, passing the premises back into the hands of its property owners. It said that the fire was started accidentally but could not give any more information.
Incident commander Ian Bitcon said: “Actions taken by the initial crews played a huge part in ensuring that surrounding buildings were protected and this meant that the incident could be dealt with quickly.”
On closure in 2014, Petty had a plant list that included two Manroland Lithoman webs, a Heidelberg M4000 and an Epson 7800 proofer. 250 employees lost their jobs at the time.
Yorkshire-based North Wolds Printers managing director Gurdev Singh said: “I drove past the plant about 12 weeks ago and saw the odd reel of paper and some kit outside, which I thought was a bit strange.
“Hopefully there is nobody in there, I know it’s been empty for some time. I took a different route out of town so didn’t see it but my wife, daughter and son all rang me around the same time saying it had happened. There was a big fire here last night as well, at a glass container business in East Leeds.
“It’s very sad really. It used to be a very hustling, bustling place.”
Work at Polestar Leeds was taken on at the time by Sheffield’s web offset facility, which had just opened.
Following the collapse of its parent Polestar UK Print in April, Polestar Sheffield’s web offset operation ceased printing in May and was followed shortly afterwards by its gravure operation.
