UP TO 20 people in North Staffordshire could lose their jobs after transport company First announced plans for 1,100 redundancies across the UK.

The decision is part of a move by the company to axe 3,500 positions worldwide, and according to commercial director Paul De Santis has been made to avoid further price increases for customers.

Mr De Santis said the positions affected were not "frontline customer facing staff", but were administrative roles.

He said: "Between 10 and 20 jobs under consultation are based across North Staffordshire – predominately at Adderley Green. South Cheshire is not affected.

"We have recently implemented fare increases and taken off very poorly-used services, and this is part of a package of minimising the effects on customers.

"There is currently a national package of cost reduction measures to combat the effect of the recession on the business.

"Redundancies are always the last thing we look at, but are an alternative to increasing fares even more or taking off more services."

Mr De Santis confirmed that discussions over individual job roles were taking place, and that the consultation process would last a few weeks.

One First worker, who asked not to be named, said: "They have told us there's going to be 10 to 20 redundancies at Adderley Green by the end of May, and also that some of the staff at Hanley are going as well. The way it's going there will be five managers left at Adderley Green and no staff."