ONE of Southampton's biggest employers is to shed hundreds of staff, the Daily Echo can reveal.

Maybush-based Ordnance Survey - Britain's national mapping agency - wants to lose 300 employees from the 1,450 working in the agency's Romsey Road headquarters.

The government agency said new technology meant it could "enhance quality and improve customer service" with fewer staff.

It refused to rule out further redundancies.

An OS spokesman categorically denied the job losses were the first step to privatisation, saying that was legally impossible for at least the next five years.

OS bosses hope the job losses can be met through voluntary redundancies on "the best possible Civil Service terms" by March 2004.

"Absolutely nobody has been told to go," stressed a spokesman.

No decision has yet been taken on what will happen if they can't find enough staff prepared to leave.

Employees have been told and OS bosses are now in negotiations with trade unions.

Job losses are not new to OS.

Over the past 30 years the agency, which now concentrates on computer-mapping data said to underpin £100 billion worth of business, has seen staffing levels halve from nearly 4,700 in 1970 to just 1,850 today.

OS director general and chief executive Vanessa Lawrence explained the thinking behind the decision.

"The plan is to reduce staff numbers and change the skills base in some areas of the business to ensure Ordnance Survey remains innovative and successful in the future.

"The whole purpose of this period of transition is to improve still further our products and services to customers and partners.

"The planned reductions are a recognition that technological change means we can enhance quality and improve customer service with fewer staff. Technological and business change are also providing opportunities for other significant shifts in the cost structure of the business."

Emily Boase, negotiator for skilled workers and managers union Prospect, said the news had not come as a shock.

"There had been indications that due to the introduction of new technology and the need to cost save they would need to make reductions," she said.

"We are going to meet them for the first time today. We don't yet have a detailed analysis of where the numbers are going to come from.

"Our main objective is going to be to reduce the number and help staff get other jobs with local employers," she added.