Lloyds Banking Group is reported to be considering closing hundreds of branches in addition to the 164 Cheltenham and Gloucester outlets that will shut in November.

According to The Financial Times, the bank has hired Jones Lang LaSalle, the property company that manages Kent Science Park at Sittingbourne, and consultants CB Richard Ellis to reorganise its property portfolio.

This is likely to lead to branch closures and disposals, with the paper speculating that the total number, including the C&G branches, could be as high as 400.

The bank declined to comment on specific numbers but has previously said it would be closing branches.

If implemented, the further closures would cost thousands of jobs over and above the 1,660 that will go when 164 C&G branches shut their doors in November, a decision that trade union Unite branded "disgraceful."

Six C&G branches across Kent - in Maidstone, Canterbury, Ashford, Tunbridge Wells, Bromley and Sidcup - will close in November with the loss of dozens of jobs. But the mortgage and savings brand will continue through brokers and financial advisers.

Lloyds is shedding thousands of jobs as part of the cost savings it hopes to generate from its controversial merger with HBOS that forced it to take taxpayers' money to shore up its ailing balance sheet. Last week, it announced that its call centre in Pegasus House, Chatham Maritime, will close with the loss of 210 jobs.

Meanwhile, trade union officials are calling on Lloyds to move work back from India to the UK. Steve Tatlow, assistant general secretary of LTU, the trade union at Lloyds, told the FT: "It is wholly unacceptable that at a time when Lloyds is planning to make redundant many thousands of staff working for C&G, mortgages and in head office, it refuses to abandon its jobs-to-India policy."