A new vinyl pressing plant is opening in Middlesbrough

A new vinyl pressing plant, Press On Vinyl, is set to open in Middlesbrough soon.

With investments from Leeds based Futuresound Group, Press On Vinyl will have the latest manufacturing technology paired with local knowledge and experience.

The new plant hopes to help tackle the severe delays that are currently affecting the independent music industry.

Due to Brexit and the COVID pandemic, UK record companies and musicians have had to wait for their vinyl orders to be made and delivered as currently most vinyl pressing plants are based in Europe.

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Press On Vinyl is hoping to offer better service by being based in the UK proving quicker turnaround times.

Run by David Todd, Danny Lowe and David Hynes, the plant is aiming to press 50,000 records a month.

All raw materials for production will be sourced regionally - where possible - to minimise environmental impact in the pressing process.

In 2021, Mixmag reported on the issue of pressing delays and spoke to owner David Todd about the new plant, who assured us that smaller runs of records would be given the same access are bigger orders.

“We want everyone to have the same access, no matter if you’re having runs of 300 or 3000, everyone gets a good lead time. We’ll be doing short runs starting at 100.

“We’re passionate about that — grassroots and emerging artists and labels are just as important to the industry as everyone else. Relieving capacity issues is a major thing and a major change and we can enact that straight away.

“The UK is crying out for more plants, it's not only a problem for costs and keeping small labels afloat when we don’t have any but for the environment. Shipping large quantities of bulky records takes its toll.”

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Colin Oliver of Futersound said: “Though the recent restrictions put a lot of our activities on hold we have been working hard in a number of areas, and when Press-On vinyl came onto my radar having 2 record labels as part of the group I could see the issues with the UK vinyl supply and had to get involved.

"The team at Press-On have a huge passion and independent spirit and I’m excited about working with them further and offering our expertise and support from the wider group.”

Becky Buckle is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow her on Twitter