Politicians look set to join journalists and print workers to protest at the closure of a newspaper press in south Wales.

Friday’s South Wales Evening Post was the last copy to be printed in Swansea, with printing now transferred to a sister printing centre in Gloucestershire.

The National Union of Journalists is organising a demonstration this Friday against the closure decision. It will be held outside the Post’s offices in Swansea at 1pm.

Union assistant organiser Jenny Lennox said: “We have decided to call the demonstration to express solidarity with the workers and to show that the local community does care about high-quality local news provision, and that it is prepared to fight for it.”

She said the company’s decision brought an end to a long tradition of printing in Swansea at a time when an independent Welsh media should be becoming more important.

Journalists will be joined by three members of the Welsh Assembly members for the protest.

Evening Post editor Spencer Feeney stressed that editorial, advertisement and newspaper sales departments at Adelaide Street were unaffected by the press closure, and that the newspaper remained truly local.

He said: “Evening Post pages will continue to be produced by local journalists in Swansea, before being electronically transmitted to Staverton.

“The newspaper will then be transported back to Swansea for distribution as normal.

“Readers should be reassured that their newspaper will continue to be available at its usual time every day.”

The union is claiming the changes were made as a result of Northcliffe’s Aim Higher cost saving programme.

But the company denies this, saying the press was closed after the loss of a valuable daily newspaper printing contract.

The age, reliability and colour specification of the press made winning replacement business difficult.

Managing director Chris Rees said: “To gain more contracts we would have had to replace the press. We had capacity available elsewhere and decided to use that.”

Relocation packages were offered to the 67 people who worked there but none were taken up.