Lloyds Banking Group is working on the basis that it may close up to 400 bank branches, including 164 Cheltenham & Gloucester outlets set to shut in November.

The bank has hired Jones Lang de Salle and CB Richard Ellis, the property consultants, to carry out work on a reorganisation of its property portfolio that is thought to include the branch closures and dis­posals.

Lloyds announced 1,660 job losses on Tuesday. It has previously said that some of its 3,000 branches will be closed during the next three years as it steps up its integration of HBOS.

The bank has never given a number for future branch closures and on Tuesday declined to comment on the figure of up to 400.

Lloyds said 833 jobs would be lost through the C&G branch closure programme.

The bank is also dropping Bank of Scotland and Intelligent Finance as mortgage brands for independent financial advisers, resulting in 159 job losses.

It is to move its personal loans product team from Chester to London by end of 2011, leading to 265 job cuts, mainly in Chester.

Lloyds added that the retail bank would combine certain roles such as product development, risk and finance, which will result in 168 job losses.

Black Horse Personal Finance business is re­organising its CarSelect business and will move from Cardiff to Birmingham.

Lloyds will also reduce Black Horse centres by 31. These changes will result in a total loss of 140 full-time jobs by October.

Unions were shocked by the scale of the closures and urged the government to use its stake in Lloyds to encourage the bank to move work back from India to the UK.

Steve Tatlow, assistant general secretary of LTU, the trade union at Lloyds, said: “It is wholly unacceptable that at a time when Lloyds is planning to make redundant many thousands of staff working for C&G, mortgages and in head office, it refuses to abandon its jobs-to-India policy.”

Unite, the UK’s largest trade union, called the closure “disgraceful”.

Lloyds said that all but 19 C&G branches had an existing Lloyds TSB branch within 400 metres.

One estimate has suggested that the network accounts for about only 6 per cent of Lloyds’ overall mortgage lending.

Helen Weir, group executive director of the retail bank at Lloyds said: “Cheltenham & Gloucester is a very strong brand. The strategic focus for C&G from now on will be to further strengthen its intermediary and direct savings businesses.”

Lloyds has promised to make more than £1.5bn ($2.4bn) in annual cost savings from its integration of HBOS and has already cut almost 3,000 jobs this year.