YORK and North Yorkshire door staff face paying hundreds of pounds just to keep their jobs under tough new national proposals.

New legislation requires door staff and security guards to pay £190 for a new three-year licence badge that registers them with the Security Industry Authority (SIA).

They must have their new badge by December 13 to carry on working.

Under the new rules, door staff will also have to complete a four-day training course. Although this is free in some areas of the country, such as Norwich, in North Yorkshire, it is set to cost about £250.

Darren Sholl, director F1 Security Ltd, said his Nether Poppleton based company had more than 100 staff on its books - about 90 per cent of York's door staff.

But he said he expected to lose about five per cent of his staff because of the cost of the new registration and training process, despite subsidies offered by the company.

This could mean agency staff would be brought in from outside York to cope with the shortfall, he said.

Although he agreed in principle with a national registration scheme, he said: "How can they justify charging £190 for a badge?" he said.

"It should be in the region of £15 or £20."

Agencies would also be forced to raise their prices for door staff, he said, which could have a knock on effect on bar costs.

To qualify for the licence, door staff will now also be investigated for a criminal past.

Those with recent convictions will have to wait a certain length of time, depending on the seriousness of the offence, before applying for their licence.

This could replace the current measures in place thanks to the Doorwatch scheme.

Robert Buxton, the SIA's media manager, said the tough new rules were intended to crack down on poor training levels and criminality among some of Britain's door staff.

Door workers had been known to seriously injure and even kill revellers while doing their jobs, he said.

Experts have predicted that one in ten of the UK's door staff could lose their jobs because they would not comply with the regulations.

But York police's licensing officer PC David Boag said he did not expect to lose significant numbers of bouncers under the more stringent criminal checks, because the county already operated a "Doorsafe" scheme - which used SIA guidelines for vetting staff.

Updated: 08:35 Friday, August 20, 2004