THE Guide Dogs for the Blind Association continued with its cost-cutting proposals yesterday by announcing the closure of all of its residential training centres.

The charity has recently lost £20m on the stock market and been forced to carry out the cost-saving programme, which places 150 jobs under threat.

It closed its Middlesbrough training centre in March and replaced it with a district team.

The Middlesbrough centre cost £1m a year to run and catered for about 100 users a year - an average cost of £10,000 per person.

The two-year cost-cutting programme will see another 13 training centres closed, along with Exeter which shut earlier this year. They will be replaced by 31 district teams.

Many of the redundancies are expected to be among domestic cleaning, catering, administration, maintenance and kennel staff at training centres.

There will be a 90-day consultation period before job losses are finalised.

Guide Dogs' chief executive Geraldine Peacock said: "It is imperative that we keep pace with the changing needs of our service users while also securing our long-term financial future.

"The proposals we are now putting forward will enable us to be more flexible in our local service delivery and put our finances on a firm footing."

The charity lost £20m on its stocks portfolio last year and overspent its £40m income by £16m.

It was also seeking to reverse an annual overspend of £11m above voluntary contributions for the past decade.

The district teams visit blind people in their home, introduce them to their dogs and train them both over a three-week period as well as providing lifelong support from a local base.

The charity is considering hiring wings of small hotels or university halls for those who prefer intensive training.

The other training centres are at Exeter, which closed this year, Belfast, Cardiff, Larkhall, Liverpool, Maidstone, Nottingham, Sheffield, Southampton and Wokingham, Leamington Spa, Bolton, Forfar and London.