Paragon confirmed that it had been selected as preferred bidder for the train ticket supply contract for the Rail Settlement Plan at the expense of incumbent supplier BemroseBooth.

An ATOC spokesperson said: "Following a competitive process run strictly under European Union procurement rules, the ticketing contract has been awarded to Paragon.

"We review major contracts such as those for ticket supply as a matter of course to make sure we are able to provide rail passengers with the best value for money.

"While any redundancies are extremely regrettable, we are obliged to follow the EU process, which does open up the opportunity to firms in other EU countries."

The deal, which was worth £25m over the past five years to BemroseBooth, is understood to be the largest held at the Hull site.

Simon Jones, general manager at BemroseBooth Ticketing in Hull, declined to comment on whether the contract loss would lead to redundancies at the company.

He added that, until the company was given a formal notification of the contract termination, it was "business as usual" at the Hull facility.

Andy Hogg from Unite said that while no formal talks were in place with BemroseBooth, the union would "be in touch".