JOBS are in doubt after a cable TV firm announced nationwide cuts.

Ntl, which has a centre on Swindon's Hawksworth Industrial Estate, employs 22,000 people in the UK.

It is shedding 1,300 posts after buying out other firms in a £9 billion expansion programme over the past 18 months. However, the firm has yet to decide where the axe will fall.

Asked about the Swindon site, an ntl spokeswoman said: "We are going through a period of consultation at the moment.

"We are not able to give out details of where job losses will occur. All we are able to say is that they will be across the group."

Barclay Knapp, president and chief executive officer of ntl, said the decision to cut jobs followed a review after rapid expansion over the past year and a half, during which ntl has bought a number of other companies.

It is understood that backroom and support staff are likely to be hardest hit.

Ntl is best known in Swindon for providing the town's cable television network, currently in the process of being upgraded.