BOLTON'S tax office will be closing with "most employees" moving into two new regional centres to be established in Liverpool and Manchester.

The branch in Stone Cross House in Churchgate in Bolton town centre that will be shutting in 2017/18, announced Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HRMC) today.

Campaigners successfully managed to save the office in a previous rounds of closures in 2008 but its fate has been sealed as one of 24 branches being shut across the North West over the next five years.

The smaller regional branches will be replaced by two large regional centres at unspecified locations in Liverpool, which opens in 2018/19, and in Manchester city centre, to begin operations in 2019/20.

It is envisaged those of the 93 Bolton-based staff who wish to transfer will move to one of the existing Manchester offices temporarily before re-locating again along with everyone else into the new Manchester city centre hub when it becomes available.

Between 8,400 and 9,000 full-time jobs will be housed at the two new regional centres - between 2,800 and 3,100 in Liverpool and 5,600 and 5,900 in Manchester.

No existing office in either city is large enough to accommodate the enlarged workforces so both cities will get new offices although not necessarily new-build ones.

Lin Homer, HMRC’s Chief Executive, said: “HMRC is committed to modern, regional centres serving every region and nation in the UK, with skilled and varied jobs and development opportunities, while also ensuring jobs are spread throughout the UK and not concentrated in the capital.

"HMRC has too many expensive, isolated and outdated offices.

"This makes it difficult for us to collaborate, modernise our ways of working, and make the changes we need to transform our service to customers and clamp down further on the minority who try to cheat the system.

“The new regional centres in Liverpool and Manchester will bring our staff together in more modern and cost-effective buildings in areas with lower rents. They will also make a big contribution to the economy of the North West region providing high-quality, skilled jobs and supporting the Government’s commitment to a national recovery that benefits all parts of the UK."

Among the 24 doomed North West branches are HMRC's four in Manchester, three in Liverpool and one each in Blackburn, St Helens, Warrington, Preston.

It is part of an effort to cut £100m from HMRC's spending on its estate.

In a statement, the agency said: "HMRC will close most of its existing offices in the North West by 2020-21, as it moves most employees into the new regional centres.

"HMRC is phasing in the moves over ten years to allow staff time to make choices for their future and reduce the number of possible redundancies.

"Where offices are a long way from a regional centre and it is not possible for employees to move to work in one, HMRC will do everything it reasonably can to help them to find new roles, either elsewhere in the civil service, or outside, in order to minimise redundancies."

Even though the fight to keep the office open in 2008 was successful, 130 of its 250 employees were transferred to one of the Manchester offices now also earmarked for closure.