According to the group, only around 100 staff will be required at the site, which will in effect become a satellite to the flagship gravure facility at Sheffield. A 90-day consultation into the proposals will begin on Monday (1 November).

Unite national officer Steve Sibbald said: "Our priority is jobs, jobs, jobs. We will be negotiating to save as many jobs as possible within the group. Where there is life there is hope."

However, simultaneous to the consultation at Varnicoat, Polestar is also running a review of its web offset facilities, which could lead to a further consultation at one or more of its web offset plants.

Group operations director Catherine Hearn said: "We are running a review of our web offset sites in parallel with the consultation, but one informs the other. We need to know where we are on the gravure side before moving onto web offset and we will know that once we have completed this review.

"It will be a staged process and it is important that we get the results of the consultation first. No firm proposals have been made, but we will be firming up plans in the coming months."

The update follows chief executive Barry Hibbert’s statement last week that the company was looking to cut around 7,000 hours of "uneconomical" gravure and web-offset capacity next year as part of an initiative to eliminate unprofitable contracts.

The disclosure coincided with the news that Polestar was to lose the Express Newspapers’ supplements to Roto Smeets and Express publisher Northern & Shell’s decision to move New! and Star magazines from Polestar to BGP.

Sibbald added: "We have asked the question regarding the rest of the group, after the loss of the Northern and Shell contract. At the moment the company has made no further proposals, but that is not to say they will not follow."