David S Smith (Holdings) is taking "considerable downtime" at its UK paper businesses due to tough market conditions.


"Demand in the UK has been falling off and sales volumes in paper and packaging have weakened," said group communications manager Paul Froud.


He added that only St Regis Paper Company would be affected by the downtime, although the corrugated packaging business was trading in "particularly difficult conditions".


"We will probably lose a couple of weeks production overall, but this will allow us time for maintenance at our various sites," said Froud.


This follows on from the group announcing its first half results in December, which showed a 66% rise in pre-tax profits to 39.4m.


The group said it was on course for a "satisfactory result" for the full year.


St Regis Paper Company has eight paper and board mills in the UK, with a combined output of nearly 1m tonnes per year.