UNION bosses threatened strike action last night over plans by Consignia to axe 10,000 staff.

The company needs to achieve savings of £1.2bn and is to scale down its struggling Parcelforce Worldwide business.

It is also restructuring its transport operations and announced earlier this year that 5,000 management posts would go.

The move is thought to place a threat over 3,000 urban post offices, including scores in the North-East, which could merge with larger centres to further cut costs.

Cognsignia chief executive John Roberts warned that moves to open up the post market to competition could result in a total of 45,000 job losses over the next three years.

Its chairman Allan Leighton said the company was in a "perilous position", losing more than £1.5m every day, and it had to seek a cure.

But last night, Billy Hayes, general secretary of the Communication Workers' Union, said: "If this means any attempt by the Post Office or the Government to force through redundancies, they will be resisted by strike action."

Within Parcelforce - which is currently losing £15m a month - 50 depots are to shut, with the loss of 6,700 jobs.

These include Scarborough, where 24 jobs will be lost. About 40 jobs are also expected to go at the Middlesbrough depot through natural wastage and redeployment.

About 2,500 jobs will go from within Consignia itself, and further cuts will be made when four mail distribution centres close.

Phil Graham, branch secretary of the Darlington branch of the CWU, which represents about 1,000 postal staff, said: "We are gearing ourselves up for some dramatic job losses over the next few years.

"Radical measures do need to be implemented, but with consultation and agreement."

Anne Pratt, secretary of the North Yorkshire and South-West Durham branch of the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters, who has a post office at Gainford, near Darlington, said many of colleagues were on "tenterhooks" over Consignia's next move.

She believed that if a number of urban post offices were to go, it would initially be on a voluntary basis only, with a compensation package being made available.