British Gas to cut 100 jobs in Leeds

British Gas is set to cut 500 jobs as it tries to save costs by shutting its loft and cavity wall insulation business.

The majority of redundancies will occur at sites in Oxford, Leicester and Leeds, where around 100 jobs will be lost, accoridng toThe Telegraph.

The staff at risk have been installing home insulation to reach targets set by the government, but these have been reduced over the past several years and now British Gas is looking to cutting costs.

Mark Hodges, chief executive of UK energy supply & services for British Gas, said: “We are focused on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of our organisation to meet the changing needs of our customers. British Gas is well positioned to grow, but we must ensure that our costs allow us to be competitive for our customers.

“I recognise that this will be difficult news for the employees who may be affected. However I believe today’s announcement is in the best long-term interests of the business.

“Our priority is to support all those potentially impacted, and to ensure a fair and transparent consultation process.”

British Gas, which is Britain’s largest energy supplier, has not yet confirmed when the job cuts will take place.

Brian Strutton of the GMB union, added: “The closure of the loft and cavity wall business with a loss of 500 jobs is a real sickener.

“At the end of last year we went through a reorganisation which, we were told, was to make that business competitive, and everyone thought that was behind us.

“But it seems while we were doing that the company was hatching secret plans to shut the whole operation down. Staff will feel gutted and we will think twice about believing anything the company says now.”