A spokeswoman for the Express confirmed that Richard Desmond's newspaper group is planning to spend the cash on the Docklands plant "over the next few months".

The spend will include upgrading both pre-press and presshall kit. West Ferry has not yet moved to CTP, and its presses are up to 18 years old.

A team from West Ferry was scouting the halls at Ifra in Amsterdam on the lookout for new equipment, but production director Brett Lawrence declined to give further details on which kit was on the shopping list.

"We've been in discussions for the past few months on expansion on the colour side, and we're that far behind that we need to work on colour," he said.

The news just after News International's confirmation that it is to invest 600m in three new printing plants, housing 22 MAN Roland triple-width presses, at Enfield, Knowsley and Glasgow.

West Ferry, which houses 18 Goss presses, is ripe for investment since its long-term boardroom conflict came to an end in the summer.

The dispute was put to bed after Richard Desmond reached an accord on the site with the Barclay brothers, the new proprietors of the Telegraph Group, which owns 50% of the plant.

West Ferry prints six national daily newspapers including The Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Star, The Sport, The Express and The Guardian.

Story by Josh Brooks