TWENTY-FIVE jobs are being axed from the York office of builders Barratt Developments because of a “challenging market”.

The targeted jobs – a tenth of the workforce employed at Alpha Court in Monks Cross Drive – include labourers, site managers and forklift truck drivers.

One of them said: “We were finally told who was going to be made redundant last Thursday, having been originally informed on March 27 that some of us would go. Now we have gone.

“But it still came as a terrible shock for all of us. Some of us have worked for Barratts for 20 years.”

Paul Newman, managing director of Barratt Yorkshire East, said: “In common with all other house builders we are operating in a challenging market and we have, with regret, had to inform some employees in York that they are at risk of redundancy.

“We are currently in a process of consultation with staff and in the region of 25 redundancies are expected to be made.”

This is the second occasion in ten months that there have been numerous job losses at Barratt York.

Last September, the group axed 40 jobs in the city – among the 1,200 jobs nationally which the housebuilder announced it would shed to achieve £40 million in cost savings to protect itself from the downturn in the property market.

At that time the axe fell on administration, office, site workers and sales staff.

A spokesman for the company said today no working building sites in the region would be affected.

The only site in York where work had stopped was the five-home project at Reflections near the Foss at Huntington, said the spokesman, adding: “But we halted work in December, and now we are looking into the prospect of resuming work.”