The Wingate Industrial Park plant was closed in early 2009 due to "extremely tough trading conditions".

Pharmachem has bought the site, which Newquest only opened in 2001, for £2m – a huge discount on the £17m spent when it was built.

Guardian media analyst Roy Greenslade said Newsquest had taken "a massive hit selling off the print facility".

Newsquest had printed the Bolton News, Lancashire Telegraph and the Bury Times, among others, at the Cheshire facility, all of which are now printed in North Wales.