The bindery, a subsidiary of Wakefield-based Charlesworth Press, can produce a finished item from the printer’s collated book blocks, and can perfect bind digitally printed runs of items such as books, magazines and brochures.

Hammonds marketing manager Sarah Philp told PrintWeek that over the past year it had spent over £200,000 on new bindery equipment.

This included a new Muller Martini Bravo T stitcher, a second-hand MBO K800.2S-KT2/4FP folder from Graphitec, a new Rochman TR65 shrinkwrapper supplied by Yorkshire Packaging and a Norpak CF35 mailing line from Mailroom Equipment, which offers polywrapping and sleeve wrapping services as well envelope production.

Managing director David Boothman said Hammonds continued to evolve to meet the constantly changing demands of printers.

"With print runs, particularly for books decreasing, we wanted to ensure that Hammonds was equipped to provide services appropriate to these requirements," he said.

"Ongoing investment is being made to enable us to offer new and continuously improved services, and I look forward to making further announcements in the coming months."

Philp said she could not yet be specific on what these announcements would be, but the company was looking at two new pieces of equipment, with a total of cost of around £450,000.

"If we do buy them then we would look at taking on three to five more staff," she added.