The managing director of Rentokil Initial's work wear division has defended the announcement of more than 200 potential job cuts at two Bradford factories.

Stephen Booth, said cuts were a last resort and that every effort was being made to salvage the jobs at the two factories in Lidget Green and Northside Road.

As reported in the Telegraph & Argus last week, 218 workers are facing redundancies after attempts to sell the work wear and linen divisions failed.

The Lidget Green factory, on Legrams Lane, is to close entirely while the Northside Road site, which also houses the firm's dustmat and washroom businesses will be significantly downsized.

Mr Booth said: "The Lidget Green factory is the UK manufacturer of our workwear. With the loss of our biggest customer we could not give a definite decision on what is going to happen there.

"We have spent 14 months trying to sell this business but found most players were more interested in cherry picking our contracts rather than taking on the employees and business itself."

The linen's business has been performing badly for some time now, registering a £5 million loss in 2004. The job losses in Bradford are part of 1,700 proposed redundancies across the UK.

Mr Booth said: "Nobody will be made redundant until the end of April. The 218 is very much the high end figure.

"We have people actively working on finding places where we can redeploy workers in our other businesses and looking to find work for them with other employers. Those that are made redundant will be given a loyalty bonus."

Mr Booth also addressed the unfortunate circumstances in which the company initially reported that its Bradford companies were to be unaffected by the job cuts, only to later state that the would be as many 218 jobs axed in the city.

"That was a statement released only to the press. All employees had been notified on Monday morning before we went public."

Officials from the GMB union, representing the interests of workers at the two factories in Bradford, held high level talks late last week with Rentokil Initial bosses.

In a statement after the meetings, the union said that it was considering action against the company following what it described as a "catalogue of disastrous announcements".