The business publishes more than 50 weekly newspapers and nearly 60 magazines, some of which are printed internally while others are outsourced.

From November production will cease at the Thorpe St Andrew, Norwich base and Archant’s newspapers, which include the Eastern Daily Press and East Anglian Daily Times, will be printed by Newsprinters, which already prints titles including The Sun, The Telegraph and The Times at its Hertfordshire operation.

The distribution of Norfolk and Suffolk titles, meanwhile, will be taken over by Menzies and Smiths.

Nearly 100 staff work at the Norwich print site, which will now be decommissioned. While the majority of staff will transfer to Newsprinters, Menzies or Smiths, they have been informed that there may be redundancies.

Hold The Front Page said an announcement to staff stated: “As everyone understands, in the decades since we opened the Thorpe site, our industry has gone through many changes.

“For the first time, a third party is now able to offer the capacity and flexibility to print all our daily and weekly papers, providing substantial cost savings. Our business continues to invest into growth areas such as our digital platforms, to keep Archant robust and futureproof.”

Archant chief executive Jeff Henry will step down on Friday (26 September), after five years, while chairman Simon Bax will take up the newly created role of executive chairman.

Henry said: “Archant is committed to delivering the best possible service to our readers and advertisers in the most cost-effective manner.

“The Broxbourne printing plant is one of the largest and most technologically advanced in the world which will ensure we continue to deliver the highest quality printed newspapers to our readers in the most cost efficient manner.”

Archant has been undertaking various measures to offset the effects of continuing declining advertising revenues and print readership numbers, which saw group revenues drop from £95.5m in 2017 to £87.2m last year, while operating profit fell from £4.7m to £2.7m in the same period.

In May it had been rumoured that the business, which was founded in 1845 and currently employs around 1,200 staff, could be put up for sale.