THE NTL telecommunications company, which employs 400 staff near Yarm, is searching for 4,000 redundancies across the UK.

However, the debt-ridden American firm has stressed that some staff will be retained at its Preston Farm business park office. There are about 100 customer service staff there and the firm said these types of jobs were safe.

It is believed most losses could be among sales and marketing staff, but engineers, human resource workers and construction staff also face uncertainty.

Negotiations are taking place between managers and staff over the next 90 days. NTL hopes it can find voluntary redundancies but it is considering compulsory job losses.

The announcement was made this week. Preston Farm spokesman Mrs Alison Levett said on Wednesday: "Jobs are being looked at across the country, not specifically in any individual region. We are going through a 90-day consultation period.

"There is no regional redundancy figure and some press reports of 400 redundancies here are completely wrong," she stressed.

In addition to redundancies, the firm announced an extensive cost-cutting programme with a management pay freeze, a review of non-essential consultants and contractors, and an overall look at expenses.

NTL is the biggest cable operator in Britain and has three million customers. In addition to providing telecom and cable TV services, it sponsors Newcastle United football club.

It is also involved with the latest and much-publicised broadband cable technology, but the whole communications industry has fallen on hard times.

The firm is quoted on the American Nasdaq stock exchange. It owes more than $10bn to numerous banks and has another $10bn of bonds outstanding. If it collapses, it could become the world's biggest bankruptcy.

This fresh cost-cutting exercise is its latest attempt to address its problems. It announced 6,000 redundancies earlier this year.

British banks are owed large sums of money, including HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Barclays, Abbey National, Royal Bank of Scotland and Bank of Scotland.

Cable & Wireless, NTL's second biggest shareholder, has lost about £3bn in two years through the collapse of the firm's share price.