The Daily Mail & General Trust is to relocate its printing operation to a new greenfield site in Essex.
It would allow the company to upgrade its printing presses and, it says in a statement on its website today, "to reconfigure them more efficiently."
The plan envisages a three-and-a-half year transfer of its presses from its current south London print works in Surrey Quays further down, and across, the Thames to Thurrock. It will cost between £45m to £50m.
The new plant will have the capacity to print full colour 128-page copies of the Daily Mail and 160-page issues of the Mail on Sunday.
A DMGT spokesman said: "We are constantly searching for ways to produce our copies more efficiently. The plan to move to Thurrock is part of this process and it is expected to deliver significant savings once implemented."
DMGT's consumer media division, A&N Media, will retain four print sites in Britain.
DMGT opened the 11-acre Surrey Quays plant in 1989. But, in recent years, it has become increasingly surrounded by mainly residential property development.
So expect the company to cash in when the site becomes free in four years' time.
