By HELEN COMPSON

Last updated 13:36, Thursday, 17 July 2008

HEXHAM tax office is to close, with the loss of up to 20 jobs to the town.

Under a nationwide review of properties operated by the Revenue and Customs department, the tax office on Haugh Lane is one of three in the North to go.

Most of Hexham's 22 staff will be offered the option of transferring to the Revenue and Customs complex in Longbenton, outside Newcastle.

However, two or three could remain behind to man a smaller enquiry office, probably based at alternative premises elsewhere in the town.

By April next year, all staff will have been withdrawn from the Haugh Lane office, said an insider.

And the building itself will close by spring 2010.

Yesterday's announcement by the Treasury that Alnwick and Bishop Auckland would also close means there will be no tax office between North Tyneside and Edinburgh.

One staff member, who preferred not to be named, said staff were “devastated”.

Two-thirds of them were female and almost half worked part-time.

With Longbenton being an hour away by car, it was a journey that some could not make for family reasons.

“Some people already travel in from rural areas to work in Hexham, so they would have enormous problems reaching Longbenton,” said the member of staff.

“But the department has said there will be no redundancies – without explaining what will happen to those who can't travel – so there is a huge amount of uncertainty hanging over us.”