IT’S SIX months since I last put pen to paper for this column. As so often happens with the best-laid plans, events outside our control drove a sledgehammer through our business plan.

We then had to pick ourselves up and deal with the problem as best we could.

This has been the story of our year. When our previous printer, Reach, decided to close two print sites, we had to find a new solution for printing and distributing the paper — and fairly quickly.

We faced two challenges. First, we needed a printer that could handle a daily newspaper and link into national distribution. Second, we had to keep the whole operation within an affordable budget.

After weeks of chasing red herrings, crunching the numbers and commissioning templates and scripts to be rewritten, we were then asked to bring the move forward by a month.

No panic — until the sledgehammer came back, this time with a huge question over distribution to Scotland.

I’ve been around long enough to remember when we had “day B” distribution to Scotland and, for a while, even a postal service.

That is not the service our friends and comrades in Scotland deserve. For the last 14 weeks, we have had a single vehicle transporting the paper from Liverpool to Glasgow for onward distribution. It was a service we could not afford — but could we risk losing all our sales in Scotland?

Today we herald a new dawn for the paper. We have secured a printing slot in Glasgow, with the first copies rolling off the press tomorrow evening for Monday’s edition.

Yes, there will be additional costs, but they will be lower than the cost of trunking the paper from Liverpool.

For years we have talked about printing the paper in Scotland, and at last that dream is becoming a reality.

It is a tight window, though, so if my colleagues on the subs desk are reading this, please take note: we need to be off stone five minutes early — not one minute late!

So this is a real step forward — but it is not the end of the story. To all our readers: please do what you can to encourage your friends and family to subscribe to the paper, whether in print or digitally. We still have a large funding gap, and the simplest, most lasting way to close it is through more sales.

Bernadette Keaveney is assistant business manager and circulation manager.