This project followed the successful £82 million completion of a state of the art new printing facility
at Didcot for Harmsworth Quays Printing Ltd on behalf of the Daily Mail – the printing and production operation
incorporated a Cerutti Flexo printing press producing newspapers in colour with non-rub off ink.
The new press site was to be set in ten acres and would house four S4 Cerutti flexographic presses which can print up to 80,000 copies an hour. Once fully operational the centre would be printing 3.2 million copies a week of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, and 350,000 copies of regional titles. Printing presses offer a unique challenge as they simultaneously operate at high speeds and also need to achieve a high level of precision in the print output.
The client and their structural engineers were worried about the vibration from the Great Western main railway line adjacent to the building and vibration from the printing press itself affecting the offices built alongside. An additional challenge was the mass of the printing press in question which had a total weight, including printing press, folding units and reel stands, of 3,721,056kg.