A newspaper printing hall that was built for £17m before being closed down two years ago has been sold for £2m to a pharmaceutical company.

Regional publisher Newsquest shut the plant near the M6 motorway last year, less than eight years after it opened.

The 40,000 square foot unit at Wingates Industrial Park used to print two Newsquest daily titles, the Bolton News and Lancashire Telegraph, together with 17 other titles in Cheshire and Lancashire.

Running at full capacity it could print 60,000 newspapers an hour.

The plant was eventually closed in response to what Newsquest called “extremely tough trading conditions.”

It has been bought by a local drugs company, M&A Pharmachem.