MANAGERS who announced the closure of a Preston call centre met with union bosses yesterday (Wednesday) to discuss the decision.

On Tuesday, financial services company Experian, which is part of the GUS group, revealed its London Road operation would close and 600 people would lose their jobs.

Three hundred jobs will go in July this year and the remaining 300 in March 2006.

Keith Valentine, commercial director for Experian which has its head office in Nottingham, said: "We have carried out a thorough review of our contact centre business and reluctantly concluded that it is not economically viable in the long term.

"The market place for contact centres has changed considerably in the last two years and significant investment would be required to bring the centres up to the level of economic efficiency required to make them competitive with world-class specialists in the area."

Company bosses said the closure was due to a decision to close the contact centre area of its business. They denied jobs were being sent abroad as part of a cost-cutting measure.

Union bosses at the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw), representing the employees, said: "We are satisfied that Experian are not sending the jobs abroad, but we are sickened and saddened to find out that it is clients who would use a company like Experian that are sending the jobs abroad.

"We will not take the decision lieing down though, we will now look at where we go from here. Our union supports any measures that keep jobs in Britain."

Workers have also been angered because the firm was recruiting staff right up until the week before the announcement.

Mr Valentine conceeded that the timing of the recruitment drive was unfortunate, but said that the new staff were on temporary contracts.

He also said that a banner advertising jobs outside the building had nothing to do with Experian.

Worker Ben Newbury, of Preston, who has worked for the company for five years, said he was "absolutely gutted" on hearing the news. He said: "I was trying to work my way up the company ladder.

"I've got a mortgage to pay and I am putting my girlfriend through university."

Experian is also closing call centres in Bolton and Widnes with the loss of a further 266 jobs.