An electrical failure at Reach’s Oldham print site risks ‘severe disruption’ to newspaper deliveries into stores on 14 February. A source close to Reach confirmed to Better Retailing late on the afternoon of 13 February that while ‘partial power’ had been restored, presses remained offline.
An industry source claimed publishers are scrambling to activate contingency plans to move morning newspaper print volumes from Oldham to other Reach sites. They added that this would cause delays into wholesaler depots, especially in the north of England.
The Oldham site is understood to produce Reach’s Star, Mirror and Express brands, as well as third party titles. Speaking to Better Retailing, Reach’s manufacturing manager at Oldham, Paul Greatbanks, explained: “We’ve outsourced printing to Watford, Scotland and others and we’ve moved printing forward to now in order to mitigate as much of the impact as we can on newsagents.”
Asked whether the issue at Oldham would be resolved in time for press the following day, Greatbanks answered: “It could be something that takes another 24 hours to get to where we were before.”
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