The first non-Daily Mail and General Trust titles are being printed at Harmsworth Printing’s new Didcot plant, which has begun production of the Oxford Journal and the Basingstoke Observer, weekly publications from Tri Media Publishing.

Tri Media is based in Abingdon, so location was a key attraction of the Harmsworth Printing facility.

Tri Media chief executive Howard Taylor said: “Harmsworth’s new flexo presses provide our readers and advertisers with clean sharp images, with ink that doesn’t rub off. In addition, because the copies are stapled, they do not fall apart, so are easier to read.

“In just a few hours, our papers are ready for despatch from under-cover areas of the plant so we never have to worry about the weather when loading the papers onto our vehicles.

“We are delighted with the new arrangements and look forward to working with the team at Didcot.”

Harmsworth Printing sales director Ian Cooke added: “To have brought in our first commercial titles to Didcot so soon is a fantastic achievement and recognition of our position as a leading newspaper production company.”