The group has earmarked 90m for its regional production plants to be spent on Goss machinery at Cardiff and a new plant in the Midlands.

The investment will see the merger of the groups plants that produce the Birmingham Post & Mail and Coventry Evening Telegraph into one site at Fort Dunlop.

Trinity Mirror director of corporate communications Nick Fullagar said the group had planning permission for the new plant, but declined to speculate on how long it would be until it was built.

"The Midlands is unlike any other area in the group. Birmingham and Coventry have their own press halls. We looked long and hard at finding a site that would be able to provide the kind of service for both areas," said Fullagar.

He admitted that the merger could lead to some redundancies and that preliminary negotiations were taking place with staff.

Trinity Mirrors Cardiff plant, which produces The Western Mail, will have its press facilities upgraded, as will its plant at Teeside, which produces the Evening Gazette.

Trinity Mirrors preliminary 2001 turnover was up 4.8% to 1.13bn, while pre-tax profits increased 1.5% to 155.5m. However, after exceptional items relating to publishing rights of the former Mirror Group the group made a loss of 12.5m.

There was more good news for Goss Graphic Systems after Aberdeen Journals placed an order to extend its existing Colorliner with two shaftless Colorliner 80 four-high towers.

Aberdeen Journals operations director Raymond McRobbie said: "Our full-colour capacity is being used every day, and for some time weve been getting demand for colour advertising greater than we could supply."

Story by John Davies