A state of the art print plant opened by Prince Edward three years ago is to be retained by its parent company despite the sale of its sister newspaper operation.

All the Iliffe News and Media titles, including the Cambridge News, are being transferred to the new Local World consortium from 1 January along with the newspaper assets of Northcliffe Media.

However the print facility near Cambridge which prints most of the current Iliffe titles is to remain with parent company Yattendon plc.

Launching the new company last month, Local World boss David Montgomery made clear it would not be taking on the “industrial baggage of print” and would have no “physical infrastructure” to maintain.

The £9.5m plant at Milton was officially opened by the Earl of Wessex in March 2009.

Although it will not be transferred to Local World it will continue to print some of the new grup’s titles,

A spokesperson for Yattendon plc said:  “Yattendon has retained its state of the art press, will print for Local World and intends to build its roster of other print clients under the management of Tracy Wright and the Iliffe Print team.”

Production of most of the Northcliffe titles has already been outsourced as its own printing plants have closed over recent years,.

The Sentinel, Stoke, was one of the last to still be printed in-house but with the closure of the print plant in Etruria last month it will now be printed in North Wales and Birmingham.