MORE than 1,000 postal workers in Bolton face an agonising wait to find out if they will lose their jobs after Consignia announced it is axing 17,000 staff.

Postal group Consignia will cut the jobs under a "radical" restructuring plan after losing a record £1.1 billion last year, it said today.

Bolton's 1,600 workers will have to wait until later this year for the details but hundreds of jobs are expected to go at delivery centres at Middlebrook, Lostock and King Street.

The Parcelforce delivery depot in Farnworth will close in September with the loss of about 63 jobs and further cuts will hit mail centres across Bolton and Bury.

Peter Salmon, branch secretary for the Bolton and Bury offices of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), said: "We are devastated but we were expecting it.

"There is not much we can do about it now, everyone is left wondering which jobs are going. The delivery workers can pretty much work out what's going to happen there and it looks as though hundreds of jobs will go in Bolton."

"We are meeting the firm weekly to find out any new developments."

Royal Mail was renamed Consignia 15 months ago at a cost of £50,000 but from the end of the year it will change back. Mr Salmon said: "It was a total waste of time and we told them so but they wouldn't listen. Now they'll have to spend about another million changing it back."