Darlington Building Society falls victim to mortgage slump

Jan 14 2009 by Chris Knox, The Journal

DARLINGTON Building Society has become another victim of the slump in the mortgage market as it announced that it is looking to cut 19 of its 150-strong workforce.

The lender said that it has suffered a severe drop in demand for its mortgage products as a result of the economic downturn but said that it was confident that it could reach the number of job losses required through voluntary redundancy and natural wastage.

The society said the reduction was solely in response to conditions in the housing market and not as a result of financial pressures elsewhere.

It also said that it was not planning on further redundancies or any closures among its 12 branches in the North East, but believes the announced measures should see it through current difficulties in the financial markets.

The news follows the announcement by Newcastle Building Society last week that it intends to make 150 cuts to its 1,300-strong workforce after losing Icelandic internet bank Icesave as a client following the collapse of its parent company Landsbanki last autumn.

Darlington Building Society is due to publish its annual trading figures next month but would not be drawn on whether it was expecting a decline on last year’s performance.

The announcement comes as figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) show that property sales fell even further in December.