TELEWEST staff in Kent are braced for bad news after the loss-making communications company announced it was axing 1,500 jobs.

Workers at the network centre on Gillingham Business Park and in offices in Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells fear their jobs may be for the chop.

The company says some jobs will be lost through natural wastage but 1,000 are certain to be compulsory redundancies.

Telewest also owns the Maidstone Studios in New Cut Road, Maidstone, through its Flextech subsidiary but employs only a handful of staff there.

The studios are let to independent television production companies such as Media Merchants, producers of the popular Art Attack series for children.

Telewest took over the West Kent-based Eurobell cable operator some years ago. Telewest Eurobell is based in Crawley but has local offices in Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells.

Telewest announced turnover of £334 million in the first quarter of the year, up four per cent on the same period last year. Net loss for the first quarter was £166 million, down 21 per cent on the corresponding quarter in 2001. Net debt stood at £5.2 billion at the end of March.

It now has 1.78 million household customers, each spending an average £41.97 a month. More than 450,000 people subscribe to its Blueyonder Internet service. Business division revenues fell six per cent to £64 million.

Adam Singer, chief executive, said: "We can now tighten the group's cost base as we have addressed some of the fundamental issues of network stability and customer service over the past two years. I am announcing measures designed to create an even leaner Telewest, and bring forward a break-even cash position.

"I have put in train a reorganisation of the group, which will streamline management, flatten reporting lines and allow us to focus on our core business. Regrettably, this will result in significant job losses. We have already begun a programme that aims to reduce our total staffing levels to around 9,000 from about 10,500.

"The consumer and business divisions, currently managed separately, will be merged into one single operating division, and this will be serviced by a networks and technology division.

"We anticipate that in a full year of trading, these changes will produce annualised cash savings of £40m to £50m in addition to our capital expenditure savings. I believe we can make these savings without harming our product line up or our current levels of customer service and growth."