Polestar signals end of line for Chromoworks

Polestar has given workers at Chromoworks 30 days' notice of the closure of the facility.

The Nottingham-based web offset factory employs just under 100 staff.

It was widely expected that Polestar would move to restructure its web offset platform following its acquisition of BGP last year.

Last month it announced that the remaining press at its Varnicoat gravure facility would also be closed down, leaving all gravure printing concentrated at the Sheffield supersite.

The Chromoworks site was under a threat of closure more than a decade ago, and the number of presses and shifts at the plant have been cut back over recent years.

A source close to the company said: "How many lives has Chromoworks had? It’s fairly obvious why it’s closing. There’s a lot of capacity to fill in the group now and it needs to be consolidated."

Production is set to cease altogether by the middle of next month and there is no expectation that the plant will be reprieved again.

Chromoworks prints a range of commercial print work and runs three vintage web offset presses: two 16pp Rotomans and a 32pp short-grain Lithoman.

Polestar intends to move the work to its other web offset plants.

In its heyday Chromoworks had seven web presses and printed major weekly magazines such as Radio Times and TV Times.