Bradford's Parcelforce depot will close by July, mail bosses revealed today.

The depot at the Euroway Trading Estate is to merge with its larger counterpart at Leeds, leading to more than 150 redundancies out of a combined staff of 280. Out of those job losses 96 will be in Bradford.

Parcelforce staff at the Euroway base, beside the M606, were too shocked by the news to talk, but a spokesman for the Parcelforce's parent company, Consignia, said the workers were being offered a choice of redundancy packages.

"We are looking to make these reductions through natural wastage, voluntary redundancies and by redeployment of staff within other parts of Consignia," he said.

The move comes as part of a three-year £1.2 billion rescue package in which the loss-making Parcelforce Worldwide business will be scaled down.

Consignia anticipates saving £460 million from the first round of measures aimed at reversing daily losses of £1.5 million.

The move will result in 6,700 Parcelforce staff being axed in the next two years from the total workforce of 11,700 people.

Consignia chairman Allan Leighton described the package as "common sense re-engineering" and said the firm was in a "perilous position".

Bradford MP Gerry Sutcliffe agreed that the company was in need of restructuring but stressed that job losses should be kept at a minimum.

"I'm sad to hear about any job losses when we've seen the best employment figures for a long time," he said.

"To lose jobs is sad but there needs to be a restructuring and we need to see how they're are going to do it.

"The figures show that something needs to be done but I would stress that any redundancies need to be voluntary."

A Parcelforce spokesman said that Bradford customers who currently use the depot to collect mail and parcels will not be adversely affected by its closure.

Customers will have the option to nominate a local Post Office for the parcel to be sent to, or could have the item redelivered to their work or home address at a more convenient time.