A JOBS bonanza is on the cards here in the south on the back of the UK's biggest ever warship project.

Southampton's Vosper Thornycroft (VT) has been vying for a large part of the multi-billion pound order to build two of the next generation of aircraft carrier for the Royal Navy.

Long-established VT is at present in the middle of switching shipbuilding operations away from its traditional base in Woolston, Southampton to new, bigger facilities in Portsmouth.

Yesterday the government confirmed that VT would be one of four yards that would be used for the construction of the carriers.

Overall the Ministry of Defence contract is expected to generate up to 1,000 new jobs in the south while the port of Southampton could also be in line to benefit from the carrier construction.

The news comes just days after VT announced it had issued a 90-day redundancy notice which could see up to 160 workers laid off.

Staff this week also staged a second one- day strike at the Southampton plant in protest over the terms offered by the company to relocate to Portsmouth.

Under plans put forward by VT parts of the new warships would be fabricated in Portsmouth and then possibly moved to Southampton's King George V dry dock where they would be assembled into bigger units, weighing up to 20,000 tonnes each, before being taken to the final construction yard.

VT chief executive, Paul Lester said: "We are confident that VT will secure approximately 20 per cent of the design and construction work and we will start talks shortly with a view to achieving this.

"The project offers major opportunities for VT, with the potential to provide up to ten years of work for our shipbuilding division.

"We have already had productive discussions with BAE about the role we can reasonably expect to play.

"We would bring to the programme our proven experience of delivering warships to the Royal Navy on time and to cost.

"If we are successful in achieving our proposed share of the project, it will lead to major recruitment for our shipbuilding division.

"We expect to recruit some 1,000 additional personnel over the next few years.''

VT has been assisting both BAE Systems and Thales in their initial ship studies and is anxious to be part of the design, construction and support elements of the programme.

BAE Systems has been named as the prime contractor, while the French company, Thales, which also bid for the work, will have a major role in the project. Defence secretary, Geoff Hoon said the government believed that a partnership was the best way to build the ships.

The ships will be entirely built in the UK and will be a "massive technologically challenging programme.''

The 60,000-tonne ships will enter service in 2012 and 2015 and will each carry up to 48 new joint strike fighter aircraft.

Shadow defence secretary, Bernard Jenkin said that Mr Hoon has "bottled out'' by spliting the work and described the announcement as a "fudge.''