Newbury has signed a contract with Goss for a Universal 70 double circumference tower, which will give 96 colour pages in a single pass.

John Robertson, deputy chairman of the Newbury Weekly News, said that the deal, signed on 28 April, would allow the company to take on more contract work.

"We'll be looking for newspaper colour printing work, probably for papers with high pagination and a short print run," he said. The press is capable of printing 70,000cph direct, or 35,000cph collect.

Newbury had previously used three Solna presses. For the latest investment, a project team led by Paul Liggins of PCP, looked at presses by MAN Roland and KBA before choosing Goss.

Robertson, who is also president of the Newspaper Society, said: "Goss seemed the better fit to us. It has a sufficient number of presses around to give us confidence that we could get the support we needed we are not big enough to employ our own mechanical engineers."

The deal is to be financed from Newbury's own reserves. Delivery of the press will begin in October, and will be operational by the end of the year.

Robertson said that the company expected to reach a decision on which inline inserting system to buy in the coming week.

Newbury also prints the Maidenhead Advertiser and the Henley Standard.

Story by Josh Brooks