Richard Desmond fires up first KBA Commander CT at new Luton plant

After more than 24 years in London's Docklands, production of the Daily Star is being switched 40 miles north to a new plant in Luton, where Express Newspapers' owner Richard Desmond fired up the first of four KBA Commander CT press lines on 28 November.

When the last has been commissioned in March next year the plant will also print the Express Group's Daily Star Sunday, Daily Express and Sunday Express. 

Express Newspapers' owner Richard Desmond firing up the first KBA Commander CT press line at a new printing plant in Luton, attended by West Ferry and Broughton Printers chief executive David Broadhurst (l) and Northern & Shell group joint managing director Martin Ellice (1)

Strong vote of confidence in print

Richard Desmond is making a £100m ($156m) investment in print at a time when circulations of printed newspapers in industrialised countries are declining. He said: "My newspapers haven't declined over the last eleven years. The Daily Star was selling 400,000 when we bought it, it now sells around 800,000. Eleven years ago there wasn't a Daily Star Sunday. It now sells more than 800,000 every Sunday. The Daily Express and Sunday Express are in line with the market. Through these investments our print interest is now firmly in line with the rest of the Northern and Shell group as a major modern competitor in UK media business and we demonstrate our belief in the future of print for the next 25 years and beyond."

Highly automated, compact newspaper press technology

KBA UK director of web press sales Roger Nicholls, Baldwin UK sales and service director John Leek, KBA sales manager Winfried Schenker, West Ferry Printers operations and project manager Mick Crawley and KBA sales director Jochen Schwab are delighted at the KBA Commander CT's successful start-up in Luton (2)When all four presses are up and running they will be able to print one million full-colour newspapers in just three hours. West Ferry and Broughton Printers chief executive David Broadhurst is keen to take on contract work, and is mulling the addition of dryers, which would enable the plant to print heatset and coldset, and therefore bring magazine production in-house. "We've got the capacity for contract work. If we opt to take the dryers that will happen in phase two. It is something we have considered but we must make sure it is worthwhile doing it."

The four highly automated KBA Commander CT compact presses with a total of 22 Pastomat reelstands, 22 four-high towers and four high-performance KF 7 folders will be installed in two parallel lines and embedded in an automated reel-logistics system. They have a maximum rated output of 90,000cph, a 578mm (22.75in) cut-off on a cylinder circumference of 1,156mm (45.5in) and a maximum web width of 1,460mm (57.5in). Control is via KBA consoles with EAE's Print job-scheduling and press presetting software. The £100m investment package includes new Ferag mailroom kit and an upgrade at Broughton Printers in Preston, with confirmation of the successful vendor expected early next year.