The company has installed a Tolerans Speedliner cyclinder stitching system from UK supplier WRH Marketing. The new system will run on NWN's year-old KBA Commander 85 press.

In many continental European countries legislation dictates that freesheet newspapers must be stitched, a format lost on most UK publishers.

But according to NWM press operations manager Mark Wall publishers are "very slowly" beginning to follow suit.

He said: "More and more customers are asking to for their products to be stitched. Editors and publishers have been reluctant to change, but the UK is very slowly catching on.

"This gives us an extra competitive edge when looking for contract work. We have also recently launched several new property titles, which it is perfect for."

The Tolerans Speedliner is a shaftless in-line stitcher that can operate at speeds of up to 105,000cph and has a capacity to stitch eight 144-pages of 40 gsm stock. The cut-off range is between 410 - 700mm, while anything between two to six staples can be applied per product.

NWN prints several local newspapers and work for Tindall Newspapers, although the company is now looking to fill up its press and is looking to bring in contract work.

The press, which was installed last summer in a £16m new facility in Flintshire, prints 128 pages full colour at 85,000cph. Currently NWN is producing just under 1m newspapers a week.

Although the company has invested heavily in ensuring it is well placed to take on the new contract print era of newspapers, according to Wall it is not afraid to invest further.

He added: "NWN is constantly looking to improve the press. It is only a year old so it is still a baby, but if something new comes along we will certainly look at it."