The Evening Gazette in Middlesbrough has been given planning permission to extend its Borough Road premises to allow a new printing press to be installed.

The new press will significantly increase colour capacity and could be operational by as early as September 2003.

The managing director of the Gazette Media Company, Alastair MacColl, said: "This major investment in the Tees Valley is extremely good news for our customers, our readers and the area generally.

"It demonstrates the confidence which we have in our business, and the long-term economic development of the Tees Valley.

"A new state-of-the-art press will ensure we can continue to expand the range of services that we offer, and provide exceptional quality and customer service to all our customers."

The move is part of a £90m investment by the Evening Gazette's parent company Trinity Mirror, which will also see new newspaper presses in Cardiff and Birimngham.

A new press for Trinity Mirror's Welsh papers, which include The Western Mail and South Wales Echo, should be operational by the end of this year.

Capable of running out 70,000 copies per hour, it will be housed in a new press hall in Pacific Park, Cardiff Bay.

It will replace the 11-year-old press currently used by the company at its main offices in Havelock Street in central Cardiff.

A new £60m press site is also planned in Birmingham, where a state-of-the-art press hall is to be built on the Fort Dunlop development.

The new facility will replace existing press halls in Birmingham and Coventry, printing The Birmingham Post, Birmingham Evening Mail, Coventry Evening Telegraph and Sunday Mercury, and should be operational by the end of 2004.

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