The 11m investment at the plant, which prints titles including the Angling Times, the Farmers' Guardian and MCN, follows another Ferag mailroom upgrade at the regional press group's Leeds facility.

Two towers will be added to the two-folder Goss press, making a total of ten towers, enabling it to print a 160pp full-colour tabloid newspaper in collect mode.

In the mailroom, a contract is on the verge of being signed with Ferag's UK operation WRH Marketing for inline inserting, stitching and trimming kit, and a buffer disking system.

David Crow, Johnston Printing divisional managing director, said: "The big benefit is the buffer and disking, because it means that you can still run the press when the mailroom's not running."

He added that the extra inserting capacity would be advantageous to customers, which include Emap and United Business Media. More than 50 Johnston Press titles are also printed at the site.

[0] Demolition work on Johnston Press's 45m extension to its News Centre in Portsmouth began on Monday. Crow reported that the group's 60m project at Sheffield is also running ahead of schedule.

Story by Josh Brooks