MORE than 70 employees at Southampton shipbuilder Vosper Thornycroft (VT) have had their offers of voluntary redundancy accepted.

Letters went out to workers - all involved in production at VT's Woolston yard - yesterday, but the figure was about 100 less than the number of voluntary redundancies first envisaged because of new work secured by the company.

A spokesman for VT said: "The number is less than that which was originally envisaged by the end of January, because of work that has been secured in the past few weeks. These are various relatively-small contracts at VT's subsidiary company Fleet Support Ltd, at Portsmouth Naval base.

"We are still waiting to hear from the Ministry of Defence on a contract to build off-shore patrol vessels, as well as a floating hotel possibility."

Just days before Christmas, despair and gloom descended on the Woolston yard as the company announced that up to 650 jobs could go because it had no significant contracts to keep workers on. VT is still waiting to hear if the Type 45 destroyer will be built at Woolston or Portsmouth. But things have already started to look up after the announcement this month that VT is in negotiations over a contract to build a 200-berth floating hotel.

Bob Stokes, regional organiser for the GMB Union, said: "We're pleased that there was no need to consider anything further than volunteers, but what we would like to see is something coming to fruition that would make the situation more determined, so we know exactly where we are.

"We're still in the position of not knowing whether there will be further redundancies."